It’s pretty undeniable we hardly ever see elite conqs.
For the massive price of the elite upgrade you gain +2dmg, +15 hp and +2dmg v buildings.
BUT most civs get the relavent imperial armour upgrade for their main line unit and in many cases such as CA or paladins, the unit actually gains even more PA meaning the net result on the conq is actually maintaining or lowering its dps relative to opposing units even with the elite tech, as opposed to most meta line units gaining dps with tech (eg arbs, cavaliers etc) due to the blacksmith compensating for opposing upgrades.
On top of the lack of ballistics on a fairly in accurate unit, imo the dps just drops off too much in imperial to justify the cost.
Firstly all gunpowder projectiles should fly faster. And if we can’t get that, then at least the elite conq projectile should be faster than the standard one.
And secondly i propose +1 dmg for the elite conq.
Both of these are small buffs, but Spain is pretty strong in the late game, so its more about rewarding a player for keeping their conqs alive and giving an incentive to an otherwise useless tech.
An alternative if the above is too little, is for the elite conq to gain +2 or even +4 v spearmen(to mimic HCA + PT) . To synergise better with either cavalier(or paladins if you’re so inclined) or hussars, and further avoid having to side tech into champs or train the lack lustre HC
Well conqs are actually one of the best snowbally units. So I don’t really mind if the elite upgrade doesn’t improves it much. You make the conq to surprise the opponent and have an early push tool. An unprepared opponent can very easily die to that, a prepared opponent will easily fight it back. The moment the elite upgrade comes, the conq has either worked or not worked already. Even if they add like 5 atk to it, it wouldn’t change it much.
The conq is, pretty much like the arambai, a castle age tool which can snowball very fast. Much faster than imp + upgrade can cóme in.
Are gunpowder projectiles less accurate than HD? I recall that viper once said “conqs feel weird now” upon switching to DE.
While the only change on paper from HD to DE is they receive +2 bonus attack on their cavalry archer armor, they seem to be a lot less effective in both 1v1 and tg.
Conqs | War wagons | Arambais
I spectate lots of 2900+ elo tg, they are completely dominated by war wagons. They cost food instead of wood so 60food is actually a lot more expensive than 82 wood. You can never justify two castle conq in early castle while two castle arambais and war wagons are totally doable.
Why conqs feel worse than them?
I think the big problem is the dps as you mentioned. I kinda feel like the missing shot for gunpowder units never do damage like arambais did. If I had a group of conqs chased by a group of knights and I focus fire on 1 unit, it dies but no one else is hurt, although there was clearly missing shots onto other directions but they just go through without dealing damage. While if it were a group of arambais, one shot and three knights died.
Ways to improve them
Make missed shots deal damage as well.
Elite version have 20 attack
Lower the food cost
my concern here is this might make them too oppressive in castle age where they can be very good in 1v1s
the conq used to miss more i think, but then they had this gunpowder accuracy buff thing in one of the latest patches and it seems to hit more. but maybe because im expecting it to hit more.
on top of the reduced damage, it might also be due to the velocity of the conq round v the dart coupled with ballistics. so an even greater chance of missing moving targets than expected
but i like this
if they added that much attack, it would incentivise making new ones in imperial for sure…
due to missed attacks doing half damage, by increasing the conqs damage by 5, makes a huge difference on how many missed shots it takes to kill supporting units… something like 47 down to 26
If the elite conq was better they’d just be hipster mongols. Their best play is already Conquistador.
The main aspect improved by E.conqs are the durability of the unit. Since it’s already a high damage, mobile nightmare, that’s practically all you can do to make it better.
Also, on the subject of increasing the unit damage… Anyone honestly suggesting that increasing it’s damage would make any appreciable difference in the long run has skipped a few math classes. Damage has diminishing returns. The higher the damage initially, the less efficient the returns are on said increases. Ex, a unit with 5 attack gaining a +1 bonus is getting a 20% dps boost, a unit with 20 attack getting a +2 bonus is getting a 10% dps boost. Once you count in the absurd amount of overkill that tends to happen with high damage targets, especially with ranged units that tend to all shoot the nearest few enemies, the actual gain in effective DPS is miniscule.
Unless the exact number you’re trying to push hits a specific threshold for a particular unit (you’d need 24 damage to 3-shot a generic FU halb, for example) you’re just pushing the amount of wasted damage in overkill higher and doing very little to the usability of the unit. So on the subject of the suggested damage changes:
does practically nothing in terms of the TTK of the unit, whereas
pushes the conq to three-shot FU skirms.
they deal half damage like every unit in the game not named arambai
19 damage on a conq takes it from 5 down to 4 hits to kill a halb, but prevents them from killing a skirm in 4 hits, a champ from 6 down to 5 hits.
19 + 4 (bonus v spears, but this could become bonus to infantry, ill have to check the math) = 19 damage to halbs = still 4 hits to kill them, but more damage from missed shots (unless you get on a hill and now suddenly terrain makes a bigger difference and is more rewarding) BUT 19 +4 kills pikes in 3 hits, and that is the tipping point, any less damage is 4 hits.
who micros down halbs with a blob big enough to over kill them? i would run/stop instead, and micro down bigger targets. doesnt everyone do this with high damage units vs low hp ones?
but either way when i make these threads i dont necessarily assume my suggestion will be implemented, but more to garner attention for something that needs “fixing” , its better to give a suggestion since people are quicker to correct than they are to offer answers.
like if i simply said “E conqs need a buff” as opposed to “heres some possible buffs for E conqs”
Personally, I think that conqs don’t need any buff, they are a solid unit.
Yes they were nerfed in DE since they now take CA bonus damage from skirms, but that it’s just balance.
Not that you suggestions would make them broken, +1 attack for the elite or a infantry bonus damage are reasonable. But I feel that the problem is another one.
Spanish don’t have anything else but conqs, and that was fine until it was a borderline OP unit.
Spanish lack xbows, their knights are generic, and they lack an eco bonus. That is their main problems.
Conqs have been the carrying unit for Spanish for 20 years. With a lot of weak original civs receiving buffs (e.g., Persians, Saracens, Goths, Franks, Teutons, Koreans, even Vikings somehow considering the UT and the meso civs because of eagles), plus a small nerf, Spanish are experiencing some issues. I think that the idea of a versatile tech tree supported with some small general bonuses (blacksmith + builders) with a top UU is good.
Conqs should shine more imo, especially in imp, since they are supposed to carry the civ.
Yeah agreed they have more pressing issues., and undeniably a good late game, thus just a minor buff to make the E conq situationally more appealing, as opposed to almost never being used, despite being the unit that carries the civ as sylux pointed out.
And thus also the seperate thread.
Like i think its more important for Spain to receive a general civ buff, but in the meantime on the side i think the e conq could get a look at as well.
Similar to how i think Burmese definitely need a general civ buff so they can fight archer civs better, but at the same time the E arambai shouldn’t be a waste of tech.
Or the GC and the Italians. Even if their UU are situational, it would be nice to make the E tech slightly more appealing for the price.
But conversely i dont feel the same about jaguars or samurai since their associated civs are already so strong, even if the UU could do with some tweaking it might over buff the civ.
I don’t think that the problem is the conqs itself. The UU is still a solid unit, and it now have a counter (the skirm) as it should be. The main problem is that without an eco bonus they are difficult to get going before the enemy, but the unit is good.
They are a mobile high damage unit, they are capable of sniping most units with one or two shots, they just require a bit more micro, since you should use their mobility to get as close as you can, to avoid missing.
The problem, is that other civs with strong UU have also bonuses to get there sooner.
Both arambai and GC are solid units, the advantages that they have over spanish is that burmese get an eco bonus with free wood upgrades, and a good drush. Even Italians are better than spanish, since they can age up faster and start building their UU army sooner (the elite is overpriced, but what can you do, no civ is perfect…).
Both civs have problems outside of their UU. The burmese have bad ranges and the second worse skirms, and Italians are difficult to use without water.
The same is for spanish, they have a below average eco (like Italians) and bad ranges without xbows (like burmese). That low flexibility and lack of any advantage on either eco or military lead to being weak.
The problem is, if you aren’t careful on buffing them, you risk to make them too strong again, because the conqs are still strong, and spamming from a castle that can be built 33% faster can lead to a powerful snowball effect.
yeah for sure they are an awesome unit, i almost always use them in castle age with spanish. it was more about in imperial where they seem to just shrivel and die but spain has other great options then, so it isnt a huge issue
haha yeah, well we can keep asking for buffs to the E. GC as well
Yeah, conqs were my favorite unit in AoC, and still are.
They fall off a bit in imp, but you also need to use them differently. You can mass them and couple them with FU trash units and siege rams.
Well, I think that the problem was brought to the attention of the forum several times, at this point it’s better to try to push for other tweaks and changes, since the GC is overall good.
Yeah for sure, thats why there’s the other thread for a meaningful spanish buff, like cheaper monastaries and a free tech or building houses faster
and for the elite conq i proposed the increase in damage so it counters halbs better, aka better support for cav, but it is such a small buff it specifically doesnt help them with much else
Well, elite conq do see play whenever the Spanish player ages up with enough conqs to make it worth. Only thing I can see making sense with the design of the unit is to just lower the cost of the elite upgrade to make the mass required to make it worth smaller, but that’s pretty much it.
