I think it’s a good idea, while also increasing the number of civs that can field the SL and conveniently it will actually still be a unique SL to the other civ’s versions, having base 2PA in C age.
I think it’s an acceptable (if weak) stop gap replacement for the lack of KT
Like the idea from a balancing prospective, however I’m unsure if it is historically accurate.
I agree, indians don’t seem that good on paper, but the vil discount is truly quite the something, especially for booming. Their lategame is fine too, even though they kinda die to archers in early castle age and imp. They are a weird civ though, they are a cavalry civ with a lacking cavalry tech tree and a very harsh late castle age transition away from xbow to generic CA when they aren’t up against cavalry.
I’d make their imp tech give +accuracy to HC just because. I love to see variety and HC in particular.
By far not my favorite civ to roll on 1v1 arabia, but eh, there are worse. I’d make them more cavalry oriented and not so much economy oriented personally, they feel a bit like vikings or slavs with how much their eco bonus carries them.
SL is weird for indians. You want to have the last armor upgrade for them. Also Indians have good cav archers (like the other steppe lancer civs) and therefore don’t really have a good usage for sl, as steppe lancers play similar: Mass and win.
But lacking the last armour would make them so vulnerable to archery… Their camels shred cavalry… that doesn’t make sense, they have basically no usage for sl.
I mean yes you could give SL to indians, but they would basically never play that unit.
Also Indians do fine. In castle age their eco already kicks in, so they don’t need a buff there.
And it’s funny nobody in this thread even mentioned that Indians have the best camels in the game and usually just go camels against all cav civs. (And currently scouts and light cav against archer civs in the mid game that also work nice with the free armor.) In the lategame they may lack a bit against archer civs but they can indeed for cav archers or possibly even some EA in addition.
I don’t see that indians would have any probs in the midgame. I have no Idea why some people claim that.
Well the bonus gives extra pierce armor to all stable units so if you gave them sl they’d have the exact same pierce armor as any other sl civ.
But other than that I agree. Not sure what they’d do with steppe lancer (at least in their current state).
Agree. In anycase, battle elephants for their stables would be more useful thanks to their boom abilities.
Elephants with extra pierce armor in castle age… Mmmmmmmmmm
Since when Indians need Steppe Lancer?
Indians just need the Elephant Archer as an unit to go in Imperial because War Wagon do everything ele archer do but much better.
look up the mughal empire and the precedessor the timurids which came fro mthe steppes
But then it would be better to split indians in different civs. One with camels, one with Elephants and one with steppe lancers.
I would like to see a civ designed around the steppe lancer cause the current steppe lancer civs are basically all cav archer civs. As steppe lancers and cav archers have comparable snowball mechanics but cav archers are just better in that respect, naturally steppe lancers are the less attractive option for these civs. But a civ that is designed around opening knights and slowly transition into steppe lancers could finally make them see more use. And in principle I like the unit design, so I would like to see them more often.
But I don’t think it’s a good Idea to overload Indians with units like this. Indians aren’t a one-trick pony, they have several strong tools to their disposal and the current winning stats show, that they are actually performing extremely well. They don’t need any more tools, heck they already have more tools than most other civs.
So I would definetely prefer to have several indians civs instead of one crowded one whith different tools from what they only use like half cause they fill the same role.
Because they need some substitute for knight.
Edit: otherwise they get countered by archer civs
Would be cool if they had battle elephants to substitute the knights . But this unit itself is having a glaring problem which is speed. It moves so slow and easily countered by monk. Also, would love them to buff elephant archer to have 6 base range.
I agree. EA and WW are like moving towers that resist archer fire. But it’s very hard to buff EA while avoid it to be OP in TG.
I think EA need only to be able to garrison vills and they would be a very strong tool to the indians’ players disposal.
They have terrible DPS but high HP, especially resistant to archer fire. That’s basically a tower equivalent with a little bit of moving speed. So why don’t make them finally “mobile towers” to protect exposed vills?
Devs could start reducing the insane upgrade cost for Elephant Archers at least, to get them fully upgraded you have to spend 2200f 1475g 550w (like cavalry archers), AND on top of that you have to spend 1000f and 800g more, for a total of 3200f 2275g 550w. 
It’s even more ridiculous if you think that you don’t need to create 40 elephant archers to use them, you can just mix 5-6 of them with hand cannoneers to provide a good meat shield, but obviously you’re never going to spend 1800 more resources to upgrade just a few EA to Elite.
In my opinion, the steppe lancers should belong to the civs of the Asian nomads on the Eurasian Steppe.
That is why Mongols, Tatars and Cumans able to train them.
Clearly far far far from the Indian subcontinent.
If we gonna set the 4th steppe lancer civ, probably Huns except for the potential civ in DLC.
Northwest Indians used the heavy horsemen so much, the Rajputs are the famous one specially.
I accept that Indians gain the cavaliers and elite battle elephants, perhaps exchanging the two-man saw, siege engineers, redemption or even the elite cannon galleons for them. Buffing the stable but nerfing the economy, siege ability, monks and navy a little in some degree.
+1 pierce armor woulda allow knights to take 60 shots from archers in castle age. and if I had to nerf Indian it would be their villager discount 8/12/16/20
I would personally give Indian Plate Barding in Castle Age, but requiring a Castle and possibly longer research time.
That would make it a kind of secondary CA UT, make their Camels possibly pierce resistant in CA (to replace knight in this role) and would allow removing their silly Cavalry PA bonus.
I can’t see how it could be more broken that Stirrups.
Also I would give Elephant Archers +8 damages vs building instead of +4 vs buildings and +4 vs stone defense.
I don’t know if this would require a nerf somewhere to compensate but at least it would adress the weirdest part of their design.
+2 pierce armor would be broken with plate barding it would need to be nerfed to 1.
Yes, IIRC that’s how they were for years. Plate Barding + 1 free PA. It was fine, and should never have been changed IMO.
Not in Castle Age though.
And it was kind of broken in Imp (Team Gamep) when added on top of Imperial Camels.
Although I fail to see why +2 PA in late CA for a fee would be much more broken than +1 PA from the beginning of the Age. As I said, it is always possible to make it slower to research.
Compared to Stirrup or Szlachta Priviliege, and granted that it is supposed to balance with Indians not getting Knight in CA, I think it would be fine.
Indians Light Cav might be a tad strong this way, but granted how meh Light Cav is in CA, I doubt it would be a real issue.