Yeah you shouldn’t compare spanish to civs with insane lategames.
If you do, basically every civ looks terrible.
I don’t say that Spanish have an insane lategame. But it’s among the top 1/3 of civs if not even better.
I’d say its bottom half but whatever.
Remove 15% faster firing gunpowder, make thumb ring affect Conqs and HC as a bonus, give them SE, non Elite conq damage reduced to 15 so they can’t 3 shot vils. There, the castle and imp is fixed to an extent. Now what about dark and feudal?
I think for spanish a good “tradeoff” would be to increase the building bonus to 40 %, but reduce the atk of an conq slightly.
Just in general. Would make them better on open maps, but leave it at it’s current state on closed ones.
This would be my general attempt.
Spanish don’t need a general buff, they are too strong on arena.
Edit: Btw, the building bonus is actually quite nice in the lategame aswell. It’s maybe not the strongest lategame bonusses but it plays it’s role in why spanish have an above average lategame.
People don’t understand that not all units should scale into late-game, especially not Conq who is the absolute best unit in Castle Age.
Elite Conq is the last resort of an All-In attempt by a Spanish player in Castle Age that was forced into a prolonged Imp game. And that’s where the tech should remain, a niche Elite.
Besides that, if you really cant accept an unique non-methodical design, that’s not the way to buff Elite Conqs. Since they’re already infirior to Heavy CA, +X damage won’t help, you said it yourself, they lack both Ballistics and Accuracy, on top of that their attack speed and high damage create a huge overkill potential.
The least you could do to make a reasonable elegant change is to buff them in other aspects, and accept the fact Conq will no longer maintain their role as damage dealers within the transition to Imp. Like decreasing the Elite tech cost or increasing their bonus vs. Rams (which is very useful in Imp, since Trebs share the same armor type as Rams)
Yet you chose the predictable methodical approach, pretending as if Conqs were HCA. Thankfully that’s not the case, Conq is an unique unit, literally, a great design, please dont kill it with these generic suggestions.
Increasing the Elite Conq’s range by 1 seems like the best answer. This would put them at the same 7 range as Hand Cannoneers, and 1 less than the 8 of Janissaries (which makes sense because mounted UU’s generally have -1 range compared to their foot counterparts). They would still be outranged by any Elite Skirmisher or Arbalester with Bracer. I don’t think the added range would make much difference against enemy cavalry, but it would make fighting from behind a meat shield and microing around mass halberdiers easier. Maybe the biggest effect would be outranging TC’s as Elite Conqs could now slowly take down any undefended ones without standing in arrow fire. It still doesn’t help the Spanish early game, but it would certainly extend their power spike and not force a major unit transition in Imp.
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Are we still ignoring that Spanish are a top-tier Arena civ?
Idk what this thread is about but it is becomming weird to me now.
Lol, objectively they prob don’t need a buff on arena. I think the general consensus is that they are strong despite the state of Elite Conq, and it could be possible to buff it up to viable level without much overall impact on the civ as a whole.
Personally it just bugs me when an upgrade is so bad that it should never be taken (Elite Janissary, Elite Genoese Crossbow, Orthodoxy, etc.), these should be made useful even if it means the civ must be nerfed in another way.
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Conquistadors are absolutely the best castle age unique unit on open maps. On closed maps, janissaries and organ guns are better because mobility is much less important. On open maps though conqs are extremely oppressive. They are basically ranged knights. Their weakness to skirms simply prevents them from being overpowered especially now that gunpowder projectiles move faster than archer projectiles (which drastically improves their performance vs monks, which were previously one of their best counters). Conquistador + mangonel is by far the most dangerous composition in the castle age for open maps. War wagons are probably 2nd place, but conqs are a little stronger than them IMO because they are far better vs all types of melee units and also much better against monks (and need less upgrades; war wagons require Fletching, Bodkin Arrow, and Ballistics to be properly effective in sniping vills or taking fights vs ranged units, whereas conqs do not).
Closed maps is different as mobility is less important and range is more important. Janissaries with their 8 range in castle age are absolutely the strongest unit here. They beat every other unit in the entire game if they are micro-d properly, with the exception of maybe plumed archer, camel archers, and mangudai (which are far less effective in castle age against pretty much everything else).
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Give them speed boost and projectile speed buff. This may negate the disadvantage of unaffected by ballistics and give them more mobility to justify the cost.
This bonus is a lot weaker than a lot of players imagine, and I am against buffing it as it would mean it either won’t apply on nomad anymore, removing civ identity, or it again won’t scale well into the lategame. An increment of 15/30/45/60 makes more sense.
I don’t see how those are related considering the civ is borderline alt f4 material on arabia if you random it.
An early game buff won’t necessarily buff their Arena potential, it can be focused on ara. Something for the scouts and the knights or the maa or both.
Again with this, have you even played the game in the past 2 years?
In the Spanish comp yes, they are very akin to HCA and in my opinion they should be the Spanish FU gold unit damage dealer to support their trash comp.
Currently they suffer because when you mass more than 5 their usefulness sharply drops due to their horrible accuracy, range, and lack of ballistics.
As are Koreans, and everyone has agreed that they need reworks, including their UU.
??? Mangudai?? Camel archers? Plumes?
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Spanish not having an eco bonus doesn’t matter much in the late game since most civ’s eco bonuses will have worn off by then. Since you hold hussar+CA so highly, you have to consider that all civs that can use this combo won’t have much of an eco bonus left in imp and that Spanish can use this combo themselves, and unlike the steppe civs they have both good halbs and skirms and BBC on top of that.
Those need to be massed to be dangerous, while you’re already in trouble if they have 3 conqs.
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What was the chart where it showed different boom times for different civs, with Poles being on top and Spanish and Magyars being on the bottom?
The fact the civ had an eco bonus throughout the game aids their boom and enables them to reach imp and the desired comp easier. Huns, Mongols, Tatars for example. Magyars on the other hand don’t have an eco bonus and even though they have the best huss CA they aren’t considered strong.
Also besides Poles and Slavs I don’t think there is a civ with a direct, measurable eco bonus in imp. Even Celts that don’t get the final mill and LC upgrades have a worse overall lumber eco than Slavs for example.
They can, but it’s not even FU. Their comp lategame is unique indeed, but not that strong. Given, if you are playing with 60 trade carts and using Pala Conq there is little that can stand in your way. Still, this approaches distant daydreams rather than a real scenario.
Hence why I suggested nerfing Conq damage by one increasing this cutoff to 4 conqs, all of which have to hit. Then, take it from there. Even inquisition should be removed and replaced with something more useful tbh.
Opposite way. It’s actually way stronger than a lot of people think. Some calc?
Until the very first scrush, right when the first stable is up the usual bare minimum of build structures is:
1 House with 2 (spanish 1) workers
3 Houses
3 Camps
1 Mill
3 Farms
1 Barracks
1 Stable with 2 (spanish 1) workers
By this time Spanish workers have saved 114 secs of working time. Which equivalents with 49 wood.
Now the interesting thing: Walls! If you place 50 palisades to wall up, your spanish vills not only get the job done faster, they also save you a lot of vill time in the process: 81 secs! That equals to 35 wood.
Together that’s 84 wood. It may not be a crazy strong bonus, but it’s not nothing. With an increase to 40 % it would “save” 101 wood. That isn’t cracy much, but it’s a nice eco bonus besides the benefit of having the buildings built faster.
That’s in the early game where most ressources go into vills and going up. The bonus only becomes stronger in the midgame (where spanish shine).
But especially on open maps the ability to get the walls done faster is a huge benefit for the spanish and imo the best “easy” solution to make them better there. The civ is too much designed around that mid game powerspike and also doesn’t falls of in lategame (besides, I forgot the benefit of supremecy, it’s actually a very strong lategame bonus).
I think the bonus could be staggered with no problem. For wonders it is already only 20 %. So why we don’t make it 40 % in general but 20% for Wonders, Castles and TCs? On nomad it is already too strong so I would be fine if it was nerfed slightly there.
Disagree, especially on open maps having it from the start is actually very important for spanish. They want to get their walls down as the early game is for sure their weakest spot in the game. And as they built the walls faster it’s more likely they get them (partially) down before the opponent’s rush arrives.
And if you don’t like that about spanish you would need to overhaul the whole civ, there is no doubt about that.
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in my opinion they should be the Spanish FU gold unit damage dealer
I know it’s fancy on the paper, and very suitable for a CA civ to rely on its CA unit since it’s the most gold efficient way to structure a composition. Let’s put utopia aside for a second, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to bring Conq to a HCA state without ruining the identity of the unit/civ.
In order to do so you’d have to increase accuracy to a degree that doesn’t characterize a Gunpowder unit, on top of that you’d have to let them benefit from Ballistics (Hi Portuguese’s only military identity)
And even then they’d have an awful DPS due to low attackspeed and high overkill potential.
It’s an absurd idealism, ignoring the beauty of having an imperfect reality.
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You are tripping if you think that castle age mangudai are stronger than conqs. Conqs are literally better against every single unit in castle age (aside from potentially monks) and require far less upgrades (and numbers) to be effective.
Castle age camel archers are for sure better than mangudai but still not as strong as conqs, I mean you’re comparing a unit with only 7 base pierce attack (that requires both Fletching and Bodkin Arrow to be truly strong) with a unit that has 16 base pierce attack and a much shorter frame delay that even has faster projectiles. Keep in mind the projectile speed buff had a huge effect due to the way conqs are used (as did it for janissaries).
Plumes are also much weaker than they were in The Conquerors as they are more expensive than they used to be; ask any pro player and they will tell you that it’s almost never the play to go straight for plumes at the beginning of castle age (whereas it often used to be in AoC) whereas it is almost always the correct play to go straight for conqs as Spanish. While this is partially due to the fact that Mayans have a couple other very strong options too whereas Spanish pretty much only have conqs, it’s also simply because conqs are better than plumes in castle age until the plumes have a large mass (like 25+).
Keep in mind, this is only for castle age. In imperial age, the elite versions of all the units you listed are stronger than elite conqs.
The fact you list mangudai as one of the top 3 castle age unique units, even on arabia, tells me you aren’t too experienced with this game, or are just out of touch with the meta. And the fact that you seem to not even acknowledge the fact that the recent(ish) bullet projectile speed buff turned conqs back from A tier to S tier.
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They scale much better into late castle and are better in late castle.
Yeah, but Conqs fire much slower. And don’t benefit from TR. Or from a lot of other techs that CA benefit from, including ballistics.
That is only because Spanish literally have no other viable unit, whereas Mayans for example have eagles and cheap crossbows. Knights with no eco bonus don’t cut it for “viable” in most matchups.
There is about a 200 elo difference between me and you, and I wouldn’t call myself out of touch with the meta.
Currently the best castle age unit in the game in TGs is the War Wagon and in 1v1 it’s probably either WW or some other unit that costs wood and gold. For closed maps jannies could be considered too.
Also nobody really expects to go immediately for UU at the start of castle age on open maps as that’s just not viable anymore compared to massing knt or xbow. The ONLY time that is excusable is with Spanish against melee compositions due to lack of any better options and the faster building of the walls in feudal and the castle in… castle, emboldened by the strength of early castle age Conqs.
Conquistadors are not as good as they were once, not at all, even with the projectile speed buffs. I think that buff impacted Organs and Jannies more than Conqs tbh, but that’s for other topics.
Conqs die to xbow pretty hard, also to skirms. It’s just that similar to certain other matchups like against Britons for example you have to go for a uni and ballistics asap to deal with their army.
Conqs do hard counter a few cavalry and infantry civilizations like Teutons, Slavs and Celts, but that can be said also for the other ranged cav UU civs.
If Conqs were as good as all of you were selling them we would still be seeing Spanish have a positive winrate, although, don’t take my word for granted, I wasn’t around in voobly. What I do know is that with DE they got added the cavalry archer armor class and became a lot more inaccurate due to the gunpowder changes.
Also there is a difference between “early castle age best unit” and “late castle age best unit”. Conqs don’t require upgrades and early castle age they indeed probably are the best unit there, alongside WWs. Late castle age though Mangudai are amazing already once you get the mass going.
So… fine.
Early castle age:
WWs > Conqs > Plumes > Camel Archers = Mangudai, for the units of this type.
Late castle age:
Camel Archers = Mangudai = WWs > Plumes > Conqs.
I haven’t heard somebody on the top level complain about Conqs on the top level in the last year, besides T90 while entertaining his audience.
Meanwhile WWs are a topic of discussion almost weekly, including here.
Look. I have won games with the unit on Ara. But it doesn’t always work. And more often I have seen Spanish lose than win because of Conqs. If you are going to nerf Conqs you would have to buff Spanish quite a decent amount before they are a civilization with which you don’t say “aw f-” when you random it.
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In theory Conqs are the best castle age units. Practically they aren’t:
High Food Cost
Need Castle
Train slowly for a castle unit
Even if they are theoretically the best it’s not easy to make them work.
I’d rather make the elite upgrade cheaper than giving them more HP or damage output
Maybe give them an expensive Arquebus style accuracy upgrade from the Castle
You’re 2k? What is your aoe2 username? (Forgive me I would be surprised to see a 2k player arguing on the aoe forums)
Take a look at this video. Obviously there is an elo difference between TheViper and Dragonstar, but there is no way that this sort of insane push would happen with any of the other unique units you listed, ESPECIALLY not mangudai as those take bloody 26 seconds to produce (conqs take 24 seconds, which seems similar but you gotta remember that conqs are the more expensive unit so you are getting more out of each 24 seconds than you would be with a cheaper unit like the mangudai).
Conqs aren’t less accurate than they used to be; they fixed this (indirectly) with the projectile speed buff. The issue was that gunpowder units became far worse against moving targets, which I believe was due to the projectiles becoming smaller. Now that they move faster (even faster than arrows), they are far more accurate against moving targets (they attempted to fix it earlier by making the projectiles larger but for some reason also increased the size of regular arrows too which made archers OP so they had to revert this change ??? no idea how that worked). In fact this buff essentially means conqs can hit pretty much just as much as mangudai do even without benefitting from ballistics, especially since nowadays everyone just dodges ballistics anyway. Guess what? Can’t dodge ballistics vs conqs when conqs don’t even get it in the first place and instead just hit your units anyway because of the projectile spread 
Sure, if you get to 30 fully upgraded mangudai in castle age, they are stronger than conqs. I agree with you there. But my assessment of castle age as a whole includes both early castle age and mid castle age, where conqs have an advantage. And you know how expensive Thumb Ring is??? That thing is 1/3 the cost of imperial age itself.
IIRC there was a game in the Wandering Warriors cup recently where one of the top players made mangudai and got completely spanked by conqs from a lower rated player. The unit is insane.
Conquistador are OP in Castle Age indeed. It should be nerfed and Elite Conquistador buffed. My proposal:
- Conquistador range decrease from 6 → 5, elite is same.
- Speed increased from 1.30 → 1.35.
- Elite’s damage increased from 18 → 20.