Yeah, and it’s historically accurate too, which never hurt, as it would represent soldiers using polearms protected by the wagons, which is the best you can get as flavor in aoe2.
At first I thought of a buff to their armor, but that might be OP. This way at least they would have their place in the game giving it an unique niche.
Remove siege engineers in my opinion, and buff the bonus damage of the houfnice against buildings, so you are just basically giving them -1 range.
As you said, the unit already have more damage and HP, so it wouldn’t become that much weaker, and if civs like spanish, italians and burgundians can’t get SE for balance reasons, I don’t see why the houfnice should.
Chemistry isn’t that expensive. Most civs get way bigger savings one one thing or another.
Nothing you’ve said has anything to do with what I said. You can have the strongest hussars, but they will still die to halbs.
Tell me, if you had to pick between 2 civs, one of which got FU halbs and BBC with SE - but no hussar -, and the other with FU hussars, but no halbs, and BBC with SE, which one do you think can guard their BBC better? If you say the hussar civ, you are lying.
Yeah, but you also can’t easily push like that. You still need castles to push. That’s fine. Houfnice doesn’t need any of this. They can push as long as it’s not an open map.
You forget they get free mining upgrades, and their markets work at a ridiculous 180%. That means that they can set up their trade (along with their team) faster than anybody else. By the time you have 20 carts, they have 40.
Again, nothing to do with what I said. You can still easily snipe their BBC. Sure, they have siege ram. So? What point are you trying to make?
Okay, so there’s one civ that’s an exception. There are 43 civs, meaning that there are the remaining 42 which do not condos without italians.
You are just spamming a lot of random points. “Look at this, turks have this other option, and this other option”. Hussars with 1 extra pierce armour, Camels, Siege rams. Sure, I guess. None of that will stand against elephants on a black forest maps. Like 80% of civs have options against post-imp turks. Almost nobody can deal with post-imp bohemians on closed maps with tight spaces. It isn’t even the same.
I mean, Bohemians are very strong on both. They are in the S-tier of BF civs for a reason. 11
Yes, Bohemians are slow, but ideally your teammate has the mobility to react to cuts. I just don’t think Bohemians are ‘uncounterable’, especially in the early game. They are the strongest in Imperial, so ideally you make something work earlier than that unless you’re confident you have options later.
Should Ethiopians lose Siege Engineers as well then? Let’s remove Siege Engineers from all civs who have Bombard Cannons? 11
Etiopians get just more blast radius, and the tech cost 200 more food.
Houfnice have more HP, more attack and more blast radius (although less than a etiopian BBC) and it’s arguably the best siege unit in the game at the moment.
I mean, why tons of gunpowder civs lack SE with arguably worse BBC than the houfnice and the bohemians get it? This is a reasonable nerf, as you can still put part of the SE effect on the houfnice upgrade, adjusting the nerf to only what they need.
And Ethiopian Bombards are the second best siege unit in the game. Yes, individually they do lower damage, because the tech affects all Siege Workshop units. But if your argument is that Bohemians should lose Siege Engineers because some civs don’t have it for supposedly balance reasons, why should Ethiopians keep it?
After all, tons of gunpowder civs lack SE with arguably worse BBC than Ethiopian bombard cannons and Ethiopians get it? Perhaps the answer is that they’re balanced around different things, not purely looking at gunpowder.
So… Bohemians get Siege Engineers for free, then? (Building bonus I assume is not baked into Houfnice upgrade.) 11
No, you can put the building bonus (or part of it) inside the houfnice upgrade, so you only lost 1 range.
The don’t get it for free… they don’t get it at all.
Yeah, in fact bohemians also have a best eco (both early and late) than etiopians…
I’m fine on not removing SE from bohemians, but then give it to other civs with BBC, so at least can match their range, as they already lose in damage, HP and splash damage.
I think the reasoning behind why other seemingly gunpowder civs don’t get SE is because they have more options. That’s generally been the way you balance a civ - more options, fewer specializations. Bohemians do only one thing really well, and that is their Halb + gunpowder combo. They need SE, as they do not have powerful cavalry for example. Burgundians do. Italians don’t get SE, but they have several options as well. They have FU Hussar, Bohemians have lackluster stable in of itself.
There are some outliers, f.e. Portuguese getting SE while also having a reasonably strong Stable, but hey - Italians also get Condotierro. The general trend does seem to be that if a civ has good stable, they don’t get Siege Engineers if they do get Bombard Cannons.
Here’s a little exercise. Dravidians for example have several options as well, from strong Infantry, to Archers, Elephant Archers, Hand Cannons, and Siege Onager. Should they get SE? Their stable of civs that do get Stables is probably the weakest in game.
The general trend does seem to be that if a civ has good stable, they don’t get Siege Engineers if they do get Bombard Cannons.