Bengalis - Rearranging the bonuses and techs

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
45

lolwut. Definitely not true. Camels were a big part of Gurjaran warfare. They were also later incorporated into Indian military by Afghans after the conquest of the Delhi Sultanate.

This is false. Arabs and the Maghreb used camels in both melee and ranged warfare. Persians used camels both as ranged support and as camel cataphracts. Ottomans also used camels in combat. What you mentioned about the Zamburak camel mounted guns and the Tangut camel trebuchets is true however.

There was an article I found that mentions they were used alongside horse cavalry and elephants, but since I can’t find it anymore I’ll withdraw my argument.

Agreed, reducing the bonus damage would’ve alleviated the problem and freed up a spot for a different civ bonus. You know what else they could’ve done? Not get rid of PT in the first place.

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Yeah. That was the inspiration. But I forgot to change the cost as I had several ideas. One of them was a gimmick - dead monks turn into a villager which I had put the 500 food, 500 gold cost to make them a very situational bonus.

I’m fine with Paiks effect tbh. The only UT that is dedicated for UU only is Bearded Axe which I don’t like. As Paiks affects various units, I don’t have that particular complaint. I just wanted to make Ratha upgrade cost cheaper as it is the most expensive unit in the game to upgrade, even higher than SO+SE last time I calculated.

Yes. They are melee elephant units.

Yes. Pala Empire built several universities for Buddhist monks. (University in medieval sense. A temple with dormitory and study room for monks to study Buddhist literature and philosophy).

Indeed. They may lose a couple of those techs if this bonus is too powerful.

The horses, yes. They hired mercenary from neighbouring kingdoms like Rastrakutas.

I’m not aware of using camel though. The tropical rainforest and swampy terrains are not practical for using camel. And camel simply won’t survive on this type of climate.

Sorry I tried to mean no native horse in the region.

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Nope look it up. Even I used to think it not long ago. Camels simply transported infantries. At front line you would probably do Archery on Camel back. In later ages you would probably threw firecrackers or used to shoot firearm from Camelback. Also just a scare tactics for European Knights. Tamerlane had to set Camels on fire for a good reason. Didnt do it with horse. As said mostly it was Archery. Camel’s body and its speed is simply not worth it for warefare. Also more stubborn compared to horse. Speed and maneuver is a factor. Just search if Camels were used in frontline charges for melee engagement or not.

Thats extremely far west when trying to Invade from Pakistan-Afghanistan to India. Tho shouldn’t have generalized. Mostly it was always Infantry+Elephants. Also as said it was primarily only and only for transporting troops and in real combat you would do Archery only before Gunpowder.

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There’s literally Gujarati art of them riding camels and holding lances.

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Lancer for basic defense and even then your main weapon to fight is Archery. On top of that its “art”. You hard can swing swords on camelback. Meaning current Camel-line and Mameluke being fantasy unit. You would never use them in serious frontlines like ever. Look up records there isnt. Also you cant use anything else other than lance. Also Camelback is higher enough for good archery as well. Just do quick search.

Its similar to how we see swordsman as something serious when Spear was the main weapon. Swords were secondary option and mostly used in ceremonials. Also Samurai being Archer/Cav Archer than Swordsman. There are “arts” of them even in Medieval times but they were main Archers/Cav Archers.

Pure historic design for Camels would be being made from Barracks. No anti-cav bonus but rather adds debuff like taking more damage from enemy hits. More the number, more the debuff until it reaches capping point. Also in real combat it’d be weaker. Like weaker damage output which hardly makes it worth it to use. So you will have a button that’ll dismount and swordsman will fight. To run away, press something like mount button and infantry will go close to Camel and then run. Remember they were simply called Camel until DE called them Camel Rider. More appropriate name would be “Mounted Infantry/Swordsman/Pikeman”.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/1dbqc5i/aside_from_better_endurance_in_desert_conditions/

50

You know this is true for ALL cavalry right?

Lances are the primary weapon when mounted. Everything else is a backup for when it breaks.

I don’t need to do a quick search. I did extensive research into Gujarati camel usage, and lances were the primary weapons.

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Horses were used in active engagement when Camel Lances were used as a quick deterrence to go back to safe spots and use range options. If not your only option in melee engagement ever and that is if you encounter enemy until safety. You cant protect all spots of attacks compared to Knight. They are a bit bigger than Horses as well. Having big humpback gives good window for Archery as well. Also a bit slower compared to horses. Good luck running back after a charge attack.

Not much to say otherwise then. :stuck_out_tongue:

52

Why do you think I gave you the response that I did? Because there is historical evidence of camels being used as such, not just for transport and psychological warfare.

Yes, well that’s the direction Babur came from when he conquered Delhi Sultanate and formed the Mughal Empire.

If you are referring to Bengalis, the bulk of their armies looked more like Archers + Elephants than Infantry + Elephants, supported by Infantry and some Cavalry.

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Show me then. Example like being used in active melee engagement. Something like Camel being used in active melee engagement.

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“Meanwhile Artabanus was upon them with his vast and powerful army composed of many cavalry and an enormous number of archers and cataphracts who fought on camels, jabbing with long spears.”

”The barbarians caused heavy casualties with their rain of arrows and with the long spears of the heavily-armed knights (kataphractƍn) on horses and camels, as they wounded the Romans with downward thrusts.”

”The barbarians inflicted many wounds upon the Romans from above, and did considerable damage by the showers of arrows and the long spears of the mail-clad dromedary riders.”

Quotes from Eastern Roman sources when battling against Sassanid Persia.

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it’s interesting that the sources refer to ranged Attacks that inflict losses to the Camel Army.

Indicative that they were indeed NOT utilized in active melee combat.

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Can you not read? It literally says people were riding on camels armed with spears for melee combat.

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The first source is very vague, listing a lot of different classifications. And as it is translated even, it’s really hard to tell what the source really wanted to state there.
Also having seen this kind of listings - they are in most cases indirect and colported battlefield “reports” ordered from the rulers. They usually served the purpose to tell a tale of a very strong army able to defeat an almost evenly strong of the opponents. They aren’t there to tell future generations a real story of what actually happened. And especially not telling actual warfare details like melee fighting from camel back.

The other sources though are way more indicative cause they literally name the cause for the casualties which are arrows and ranged attacks. This can actually be used for indication, though ofc because of the very limited amount of sources all of that is actually a very low indication anyways.

It’s very important to put sources like this in the right perspectives and not taking arbittrary ones too literal. History is a very complex field and if you look you will find “literal” statements for basically everything somewhere. But the reality is, that there are so many false sources that it’s really not helpful listing single ones like this. That’s why there are historians you can and also should ask about questions like this, because they have read thousands of sources and can get you a more detailed picture from the indications of all of them.

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The source @Tyranno13 showed you is Herodian’s account of the Battle of Nisibis. Sassanid Persia were using Camel Cataphracts against the Romans in that battle. They were equipped with both kontos (lances) and maces.

Camel mercenaries hired by the Romans were equipped with swords.

Arabs extensively used camels in their battles since they were more readily available than horses and were better adapted to the terrain there. Camels were used by the Arabs against the Byzantines and in their conquest of Sassanid Persia. Their camels and light cavalry played a key role in outmanoeuvring the Sassanid heavy cavalry.

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The source used here is most likely form Herodian. He wrote that history many, many years later and it’s unclear where he got his information from.
Herodian isn’t a highly reliable source. He is known for putting several different occasions together in one. This is also very likely what happened in the citated source. A listing of several different categories.

It’s well known, that the Pathians fielded horse mounted “Grivpanvar”. Which were heavy armored. And the Eastern Romans viewed them as similar to their Cataphracts. So if they fielded both horse mounted heavily armored Cataphracts and Camels it’s very likely that Herodian just put these two different things together in one and also attested the Camels to be heavily armored because he didn’t do the necessary divide.

Ofc there is always the possibllity and it’s even likely that at some point in history someone tried to use camels as Battle mount. Possibly even making an Armor. However, the lack of explicit sources and archeologic finds indicates that this was never a wider spread development for a broader military use. If the Parthians tried this in the cited battle of Nisbis, the results were so devastating that in the aftermath nobody felt encouraged to follow that path again. So at most it would have been a one-time very unsuccessfull military try.

Also having read multiple sources of leaders from powers that had a lot of camels who actually actively reached out and bought very expensive war horse breeds. If camels would have been capable for that purpose they wouldn’t have done that. Why you would reach out for super expensive horse breeds if you could just field camels you already have access to? This is a very strong indicator that camels never where utilized as battle mounts (in terms of fiedling an army).
On the other hand, there are many references of camels used as transport tools and the “riders” would dismount before engaging in melee battle. This isn’t even counterdictive to the source of Herodian, As it lacks explicit description, it could very much be possible that the riders dismounted from the camels and some of the camels wher just driven into the eastern roman army to try distract and fear their horses. A commonly used tactic with various animals, to very varying success.

Lastly also about the war horse breads and training. Horses are way more breedable and trainable tham camels. At least there is a long history for that. And still, the war horse breeds were not wide spread - and very expensive, too. Though it HAD a long history going back until antiquity. But used eversince they finally had the Horses to act against their natural instincts of fleeing. It’s very, very unlikely that the same breeding and training for Camels developed but then completely vanished. It’s way, way more likely that the cited source just is very vague listing of different categories and the mentioned heavy armored melee battle was indeed just between the two horse mounted battalions. And the Camels were - as usual - only used as transportation and possibly distraction.

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Cool. Let’s remove all the camels from the game then because every single source “might” be wrong -_-. Despite having multiple sources across various parts of the world.

Nobody here thinking that it’s not a “use either camels or horses” but that camels fill a slightly different role, or generals went “I have 1000 horses and 300 camels. I am going to use all of them in battle”?

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I think your utilization of historic sources is more problematic. You probably have never be in contact with actual historians who could tell you how to interpret historical sources? How they find the history they can confidently teach at schools and universities?
The issue is, that you can find equally “supportive” sources for almost everything if you are looking for it. That doesn’t make it true. Ofc if there are a lot of various sources from different origin inicating or explicitely phrasing then you have a more clear case. But

This I can’t verify. I have looked in the internet and basically all I can find for “heavily armored melee camels” is actually just referencing that same one little source. Which is actually very vague and only “supports” the interpretation when you are already primed in that direction. It doesn’t even counterdict the more commonly known utilization of camels in warfare. And it is not very reliable source aswell.
Also btw
 the source claims the Pathians had “Cataphracts” literally. Which is just wrong. They never had Cataphracts, maybe similarly armored Horse units in the Grivpanvar. But this actually is a clear historical mistake in the same sentence you tried to use as literal. The source is actiually already proven to not be literally correct. That doesn’t mean it can’t be used for some indication, but not as literal as you try to.

Except that there is very strong indication that you couldn’t just put armor on a camel and use it similar to a cataphract. Even most Horses couldn’t be used as war Horses for Battlefield utilization,.

Yes ofc you could use camels and untrained cavalry for controlling the civil population. And this is also clearly was happened (the example of gurjara camels with lances was made). However, using them on a larger scale battle as heavy armored melee mount is a different story.

And imo the game does somewhat a good job in not showing camels with armor. Though it would probably more “accurate” if the riders would dismount for battle but it’s not that important to show this literally. It’s one of the many cases where the devs chose practicality and iconic design OVER the historic accuracy.

And it’s important that we as Playerbase don’t fall into the trap to try to retrospectively rewrite history only because devs decided to use fictional artistic depictations instead of what would have been historically correct. It’s a game and it never had the claim to be historically accurate.

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You know, you can keep making up more lies about me, but it does not help you make a point.

But that’s not what we are discussing here. It’s camels being used in-general. Not specifically ones that are covered in heavy scale armour, which is rare as that’s expensive.

You seem to be getting the wrong end of the stick here.

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IDK what this off topic is about. I also never lied. I just asked you a question because I saw so many issues on how you utilize the historic sources, that I think you have never been in contact with real historians to tell you how to utilize them properly. Ofc you can always just state that you had that contact though then I would still be confused why you make so obvious mistakes and interpret way too much in one single not very reliable source. The reason why I ask the question is merely that I wanted to give you implicitely the advice to get in contact with historians who could well better tell you how to utilize the sources correctly.

What I said was that the Camels depicted in the game are merely an artistic interpretation and not a historically accurate representation. And I brough a lot of reasons for that and what would have been the accurate representation.
I think this is very much ON topic. And if you like you can continue to engage in the discussion if you have further points to make. However I see you instead going against me here as an implicit concession that you have nothing to say against my statement about the camel riders in the game. It’s a deceiving artistic representation. And it’s important for us as community that we discuss how camels were actually usually used in warfare. As transportation and the riders usually dismounted to engage in melee combat.

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Well, although there’s no definitive proof (I confess I never thought about it before this week), I also think camels fought as shock troops.

While I was researching wars in Africa, I found these two excerpts. The first is from Robin Law’s The Horse in West African History, about the Almoravids.

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As you can see, al-Bakri distinguishes between cavalry, camels, and infantry, which seems to imply that they fought differently from each other.

The second is from Robert Smith’s Warfare & Diplomacy in Pre-Colonial West Africa, which mentions Idris Alooma instituting a camel corps in his army and talks about them being used in war as well. It’s more relevant when you consider that Bornu didn’t have mounted archers; so how did the camels fight?

Also, the highlighted passage raises the question: if they fought dismounted, why does Ibn Fartua praise as courageous the act of not doing so despite the “furious onset?”

Screenshot_20251127-144017~3
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Moreover, the user of the main answer on r/warcollege that @bigbossbro08 shared not only seems to believe this as well, but also stated that camels were used to throw javelins, especially among the Berbers. If this is true, which I believe it to be, we could even have a new type of regional Genitour for future Sahelian civilizations, leaving the Berber Genitour as a regional unit for the Iberians as well, as many have been suggesting.

Anyway, a unit fighting on top of a camel is a less complicated abstraction than the mechanics of making it dismount to fight.

But I will continue searching for more information to bring here; it’s an interesting topic.

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