In game, there is very small speed gap between cavalries. Slowest Cav which is Boyar has 1.3 speed while fastest scout is 1.5 It is only 15% speed difference. It causes extreme similarity among cavalries. In infantries, this speed gap is bigger. For instance, militia-line has 0.9 speed while Shotel Warrior has 1.2 speed which is 33% higher. Therefore I propose:
Cavalry:
1.3 speed: Boyar and Cataphract (extreme heavy cavalry)
They have same speed (edit: I was wrong). I am trying to make that cav archers is countered by archers. Logically, cav archer should be faster than medium cav. 1.6 speed Cav Archer is very strong still. Maybe I should increase +5 w /+5 g to +10 w / +5 g. I am not sure. Giving 1.6 speed to camels is also an option.
Edit: I am sorry, I checked that Camel is little faster than Cav Archers but I don’t think 0.05 speed gap doesn’t make camels very very strong against cavalry archers. Using Knight against cav archer also an option just like using Camel. Franks use Knight-line against Cav Archer without problem.
I’d like to see this, but then we need to take away parthian tactics. And probably also some HP (only +10 from bloodlines eg)
It’s actually important in the beginning when the cav archer player tries to get his numbers up. Camels then can force some engagements and don’t allow the cav archer player to get to the critical numbers.
It’s complicated, but I would rather leave this as it is currently, cav archers are already very powerful. Many civs that don’t have camels or eagles have big problems against them. (once they reached that critical mass)
Cav archer’s high 80 hp and high 6 PA is absurd thing in the game. Nerfing Partian Tactics to +1/+1 armor, -10 hp would provide cav desired cav archers countered by foot archers.
We should talk about speed gap between cavalries as well. Light Cavalry being only 11% faster than Knight is big issue in the game. Its lowness kill game’s versality too much.
Who said that the difference between the fastest and the slowest unit of each unit class has to be big? And even if this was true the OP’s premise is wrong since the slowest cavalry unit isn’t the boyar but the war elephant.
I ignored Elephants. They consist 5% of the cavalry units, in addition they being useless outside of team games is another topic problem.
Light Cavalry must be faster than heavy cavalry because history and game logic command this way. Only 11% speed difference between heavy cavalry and light cavalry eliminate preference variation from speed perspective. In Castle Age, Light Cavalry is useless outside of countering Monks because Knight is better than Light Cavalry in all situations. If Light Cav has 1.7 speed, Light Cav will be preferable in open maps and defenseless base comparing to Knight-line.
So what? each group you designed is also a small part of all the cavalry units available, and it’s not because a unit is less used that it doesn’t count.
And light cav isn’t bad in castle age because of the speed but because it costs a lot of food and it needs to be upgraded, which makes it harder to afford compared to knights. But it’s fine because they are good in feudal and imp, and even in castle age against monks.
Speaking of which, do you seriously think 1.7 speed scouts at the cost of just 5 HP in feudal age is a good idea? And good luck using monks with light cav that are faster (and for free) than current light cav after husbandry.
And then you casually ruin cav archers by making them lose to xbows/arbs even when FU.
All this just for a 100% arbitrary criteria.
All these cav units I mentioned is useful units in the game but Elephants aren’t. State of elephant also justify my point. Elephants are useless due to lack of speed. I would make Elephants 1.0 speed to bring into play. When speed gap between cavalries become low or high, game lose its diversity. Therefore elephants are useless and other Cav is too due to they having similar speed.
Yes, 40 hp Scout would be fine. Extra speed doesn’t increase its fighting ability. It would die harder against spearman and archers with this change.
Scout-line costs 80f and food is more important in Feudal Age but Scout is widely used unit. Why is Scout used? It is expensive and doesn’t have high hp, attack or armor. Scout is used because it has mobility. Knight with its only -10% speed, make Light Cav useless.
Cav Archer must lose against xbows/arbs. It has 50% speed by default, in addition it hasn’t spearman weakness like Knight-line, only camels are medium counters. I don’t see a reason that cav archers trade well against arbalests. I proposed to increase cav archer speed from 1.4 to 1.6. In return, cav archer needed nerf. Therefore, I chose to decrease hp by 10 and -1 PA in Partian Tactics.
Yeah dude cav archers are totally dominating and it totally makes sense to nerf them.
Oh wait. They don’t see heavy use, especially compared to knights or archers and all the civs with fully upgraded cav archers are middle of rhe pack at best. (Tatars, Turks, magyars, Indians, Japanese, and saracens).
Do you have statistical data showing cav archers are overpowered and hurting the game? Because nothing I’ve seen screams nerf thrm.
I see more elephants than boyars, and they are unquestionably good with Khmer and Malay.
Before throwing numbers around you should really go check unit stats. Do you really want Khmer eles than run as fast as a dark age scouts?
5 HP doesn’t matter against spears and not this much against archers, especially when they are never hitting such fast targets anyway.
Because you can’t have multiple TCs and the farm eco scouts require can set you up for a skirm transition.
They already do before late game, as archers can be massed from feudal age, outrange and are cheaper. Your change just makes it so that they are too hard to mass AND aren’t worth all the upgrades required to make them good in late game.
Wait until you face opponents who remember to build a siege workshop.
Ie.they are worthless against full archer spam and siege but can kite civs that rely on melee units forever. 100% good design.
So we have this huge can of worms just for some 100% arbitrary reason, said reason being based on ignoring some units. Should we give more speed to random archer units because all foot archers except rattans/plumes have exactly 0.96 speed? Should we give tons of melee armour to the same archers because they almost all have 0 melee armour and only one of them (elite janissaries) have 2 melee armour? It can just keep going forever.
Boyar is more useful than Elephants. With recent buff, they are great. I didn’t think Elephant as cav unit. I think I thought correctly. I can add Elephant to the list but it doesn’t change. Other cavs except elephants are 95% of the cavs, elephant is 5%.
I will nerf other stats while increasing speed to 1.0 of course.
Yes, it is same hit of spearman before. I would use archer+spearman combined. 2 hit from spearman and 2 shot from archer, scout is death. -5 hp is valid nerf. Franks dominate Feudal Age with +9 hp.
It doesn’t valid excuse. Archer, skirm and Scouts are used in Feudal Age together. Knight does what Light Cavalry does but it is better. That is why Light Cavalry isn’t used in Castle Age.
1.6 speed is no joke. Cavalry Archer will be used no matter how much Crossbow strong because it has Crossbow hasn’t which is mobility.
Cav Archer is better than crossbows at dealing Scorpion and Mangonel.
Valid argument but Elite Skirmisher even without bracer would still counter 70 hp Heavy Cavalry Archer.