Camels generally arent good?

ignoring the rest of the video. i just found it interesting that Hera, says camels generally aren’t good units.

i thought the general consensus among pros, was that camels are good, and players (mere mortals) just don’t use them properly?? does it mean they’re finally admitting they aren’t good enough? :scream:

usually we can ignore spur of the moment comments mentioned while the pro is busy playing or commenting another match, because they’re distracted, but this is supposed to be an “educational” video

tbf a number of us have been saying camels in general aren’t good enough, and if anything a prime example is saracens low WR vs cav civs (counterintuitively, and as a result some players like to erroneously refer to good matchups like saracen v franks)

Camel is good against Cav and bad against everything else. It is generally bad unit but Knights are so dominant in this game that Camel also shine for this reason. If heavy infantries gain buff they needed, Devs may consider to buff Camels.

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I haven’t watched the video but the idea is that

a) Camel is nearly not a counter to Knight-line because yes, it’s cheaper, but it trades more or less 1 for 1. You need big numbers of Camels to beat big numbers of Knights and Camel is not really a unit you want to mass because they are not good against anything except Knights AND they are food-intensive (slower Imp time). There are also cases of Knight lines who can beat generic Camels, e.g. Burgundians, Lithuanians with 2+ relics, Sicilians etc.

b) Camels suck vs any non Knight-line units, e.g. they trade 1 for 1 vs Pikeman (and armor here makes a big difference on Pikeman unlike vs Knights where the difference is small). They also are horrible vs Crossbows and even as a raiding unit they are bad (whereas say Skirmishers are a good raiding unit cuz they take forever to kill with TC fire)

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Is this really a news? Do other pros think that Camel is a good unit in general?

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Camel is good but heavy camel is not. In castle age, you can hunt down enemy cavs and keep the game control but imperial enemy cavs will better frontier for enemy forces.

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I thought it was the other way around, as HCamels nearly double the damages against the knight line (23 instead of 13).
Regular camels are trading more or less 1 for 1 against knights (10 hits, 20s vs 16 hits, 2.16s)
Heavy Camels trade more favorably against cavaliers (7 hits, 14s vs 11 hits 19.8s) and against paladins (8 hits, 16s vs 10 hits, 19s).

For me non-ethiopians HCamels are a great 1v1 unit as the opponent cannot mass arbalests and cavaliers at the same time.

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Heavy Camels beat Paladins 1v1.

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@Green4uu @Zelley00 You did not get what i say. Heavy camel can beat paladin in 1v1 but you will not fight in 1v1 at imperial age. when the late final battle started: Heavy camel will be easly melted againts archers, hand conners, halbs etc compare to imperial cavs and camel side will lose the final battle and game. By the way camels cant use mobility advantage to catch and kill enemy cavs at imperial age because castle and walls will force you to fight in a narrow side and there will be some arrow fire to help cavs.
Heavy camels can be better in theroy but in game camels are more effective compare to heavy camels.

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if you assume that the opponent mixes in additional units to counter Camels, it’s fair to assume that the Camels player does the same, e.g. mixes Onagers to counter Arbalest.

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Yes but cav side still will be better, arbalests can hit and run,cav side can add some bombards, cavs can snipe onagers etc.

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cav side is not better in 1v1 and we should stop judging by TGs

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I admit that I didnt understand this sentence: “imperial enemy cavs will better frontier for enemy forces.”

Anyways, I still made the point that the cavalier player will probably not have enough gold for arbalests or HCA or HC in 1v1.

I dont think HC counter HCamels better than cav.

But I agree that Halberdiers + Cav is better than Camels + Halberdiers, so the camel player should not fight that.

For your Castle defenses, I think it depends. If the enemy put lots of castle in his base you are probably better off with Hussars anyways. If the castles and his army are in front of his base (arena style) you are better off trebing the defenses firstly anyways.

I agree that heavy raid works well with cavaliers and not so good with HCamels, but I also never said that HCamels are overall better or more useful than Cavaliers (and they shouldnt be).

But I am happy to have HCamels to defend my base from enemy cavaliers and HCA. Their speed and damage are a great asset to catch them in my base.

EDIT:

Wait what ? Can we say that in the end, between cavaliers and HCamels it doesnt matter in as it will finish with other units ? AFAIK both sides could add SO, BBC, HCA, Halbs, etc…

I find Hera’s recent ‘educational’ videos a little funny. They’re largely not educational, or don’t show any actual information.

Camels kill Heavy Cav Archers when caught, no surprise there? They also beat Paladins, we been knew. He didn’t even include a control group (and the patrols are also unreliable) to compare with, or what the difference in nerf was. Will Gurjara camels need one more hit to take down a specific cavalry unit or not? Who knows, it wasn’t shown!

It’s funny how SOTL is often critiqued for not being applicable in game or lacks any depth when it comes to pros, but in similar vein the pros fail to make actually insightful videos. :rofl:

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True. They are just two different units patrolling to each other.

TBH, so far his patrolling to fight has even worse pathfinding than SOTL. Pretty much like MikeEmpires.

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Again it shows the best coach is not the best player and vise versa

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Eh, I agree that they’re pretty lightweight as far as hard data, but that’s not really what people watch Hera (or any pro, or really anyone except SoTL or maybe T-West) for. The video doesn’t purport to be a definitive analysis, and I’ll appreciate anything that shines light on the Gurjaras’ continuing to be stupidly OP (although at this point it’s mostly a matter of their UUs). Obviously SoTL is the gold standard for in-depth numerical analysis, whereas pros’ videos focus more on their gameplay, commentary, or insights that they’ve gained at a high level.

Also, Hera is very responsive and accessible regarding feedback, and this is kind of a new type of video for him. If more than a couple people posted in his comments that they’d want to see more hard-hitting data analysis, I’m sure he’d be down to dive deeper into that domain.

As an aside, I do think it’s funny that occasionally pros are unaware of semi-basic game info, such as unit stats/matchups, or whether a civ gets a certain tech. Reminds me of the trope of Sherlock Holmes being an expert in anything related to solving crimes, but lacking some basic knowledge outside of that.

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Saying camels “generally aren’t good” can be considered an accurate statement, but it’s also a misleading statement if you don’t know what goes into a unit being “good.”

Camels, on paper, are not bad units. They are cavalry, with a similar (but lesser) durability to other cavalry, with an anti-cavalry bonus. Therefore, on paper, you have the advantage of speed, a relatively durable unit, population efficient, that also beats your opponent’s cavalry options. So, cost aside, they are good units. They aren’t broken, they don’t beat your opponent’s cavalry without drawback, but they have a role and they fill it effectively.

“Cost Aside” is the crucial caveat. Gold is plentiful in early castle, Food is not. Camels are not Knights, and the differences in turnover of units with Camels is much higher than with knights, which makes the cost, albeit lesser for Camels, much more difficult to sustain whilst keeping up economically. Camels, like other cavalry, have the benefit of speed helping them to take good engagements. If your opponent plays well and dissuades engagements with good map control and positioning, however, it’s a lot of resources to spend on a unit which doesn’t trade well in the long-term against a mixed army. Further, transitions happen, and when you go Camels and your opponent makes an archer switch or a siege-pike switch, it’s an expensive investment.

Once you consider the cost and the very clear purpose of the camel and it’s obvious shortcomings outside of that particular use-case, it’s a hard statement to refute. You don’t want to go Camels in most cases, even sometimes against clear cavalry options because of the ease of the transition thereafter, ergo, Camels generally aren’t good.

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Wait, does that mean that discounted camels with berbers makes them an exceptional unit?

I want to remind that we had a thread about Camels already years ago:

Though the thread went in different directions and I also don’t agree to 100 % of some of the statements I made there.

I think one Issue with camels is that they directly counter the strongest unit in the game AND can force the fight against them. This leads to the odd behaviour of all civs with meaningful camel bonusses having one exceptional tool against the biggest military powerspike in the game, the knight. Especially boni to the damage output (per investment) are critical to view as the common answer of knight civs is to add either monks or pikes both of which increase in effectiveness the slower camels áre capable in killing their destined target (knights). So if the camels kill knights 33 % faster the addition of the counters has way less impact in the battles cause you need more counters to effectively threaten the camels.

And from this perspective it makes perfect sense that hera specifically targets gurjaras and hindustani camels as they are the ones with the highest damage output vs the knights.

They may be much better with the discount, but the discount also applies to the Knight, so they aren’t a markedly better option in their own tree despite being more efficient than usual in the grand scheme of things,

But yes, Berber camels are generally considered to be very good as far as Camels are concerned.

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