Civilization Concepts!

Having the same damage output for a unit that is waaaaayyyy cheaper its the problem. Particularly when you are talking abour ranged units that can be easily protected

I guess I’m just concerned that +1 attack in Imperial Age wouldn’t be enough.Then it would simply be like a Longbow with 11 attack, but 4 less range. Or a Rattan Archer with the same 11 attack and 6 less pierce armor. If this unit is going to be the unique “high attack” archer option then it needs to have +1 attack over similar units with different intended niches. The fact that stays within the bounds of existing units makes me confident it couod be balanced.

Obviously +1 is fine in castle age for crossbowmen.

Longbows fire more slowly, more inaccurately and are very expensive to upgrade. Rattans are expensive af.

Ethiopians who are in general just a great archer civ have 18% more attack than generic so 33% more than generic against Paladins is still amazing.

I rarely see the final armor taken in most games, and lacking bracer wouldn’t offset the huge gain in castle age.
As for thumb ring I’d say it would have to be +1 in imp only.

Provided rhey could close rhe gap.

Arbs would have 12 damage, meaning they would be doing 6 damage (50% increase) to most units. For perspective hussar have 95 hp and take 4 damage a shot from arbs. This means thry require 24 shots to die. With this change they would do 6 damage a shot and kill them in 16 shots.

Cavaliers go from 35 shots to 24. that’s utterly massive.
Paladins go from 60 shots to 36 shots.

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Big difference. Those units are balanced arounf huge costs, requirement of a castle to build 2 of them, and magyars needing literally hordes of upgrades and a castle to get to that point, all while having no eco bonus.

Meanwhile +2 attack for free requires
Archery range. Crossbow. Arb.
Fetching. Bodkin. Bracer. Chemistry. Downright dirt cheap.

And again you ignore the requirement of a castle to even start making them.

Imagine being able to make CKN out of an archrty range and having an extra range and faster firing.

I feel like choosing a relatively high Pierce Armor unit like the Paladin is slightly misleading. Paladins destroy archers of all types (except GC), even beating Elite Elephant Archers, a more expensive unit, with equal numbers. Sure Paladin vs Arb is a common battle in team games, and maybe it won’t be so one-sided for this potential civ.

12 attack also gives a large % increase to Elite Huskarls, in fact it would be going from 1 to 2 damage for a 100% increase. That doesn’t mean they’re good (just look at Plumes vs Huskarls, since they also deal 2 damage).

If the extra attack comes from a UT then it would require a castle.

You conveniently ignored how much more damage the CKN does than a 12 attack Arb. That more than makes up for the slower attack. The range on CKN is an issue, that’s why nobody ever uses them in serious games, Chinese just make their own Arbs.

We can do the same thing for the archers. Magyar CA takes 14 hits from a Hussar, Arb takes 5. CA takes 8 hits from a Cavalier, Arb takes 3-4 (depending on Ring Armor). CA takes 7 hits from a Paladin, Arb takes 3. Not to mention that the Arbs will be quickly surrounded bu the faster cavalry units and picked off from all sides, the CA can somewhat hit and run them, at least keeping the melee units contained to one side of the group.

Cavaliers and Paladins are one of the most common units they will face. And against hussars is still 50% more.

And with “making it less one sided” you mean “breaking the balance and making this civ the best TG civ”. Its just OP. +1 attack is already amazing enough

Ah yes, because a slow, squishy version of the Rattan Archer is what everyone wants. I’m sure that will do well against heavy cavalry :rofl:

Its almost like if Rattan archers are super expensive? Seriously, look at Ethiopians.

I can agree with you on Rattans being expensive. The 45g is reasonable, but that 50w makes them really tough to produce while trying to boom and make farms in castle age. Late imperial they’re not too bad.

Ethiopians are great, one of my favorite civs tbh. I’m not sure if everyone plays them the same, but I find they have a nice power spike in late Feudal and through all of Castle Age with medium sized groups of archers or crossbows. In Imperial the Arb mass is big enough that the 18%reload isn’t a game changer anymore (less microing at that phase too). I tend to transition more to Halberdier + Siege with Torsion Engines at that point (harder to get wiped out by a siege onager shot I didn’t expect). The hypothetical civ I’m describing would be the opposite, generic archers in Feudal, good in Castle with +1, and great in late Imperial with +2 attack.

Ethiopians are still considered a top toer archer civ despite them only having 18% faster firing. +1 damage is stronger than that already.

+1/2 for free is broken and +2 on imp is most ptrobably broken in general if you consider how massive the diference beetwen Magyar cav archers and non elite cav archers is. Arbs already are deadly enough without being as pop efficient as Magyar cav archers, +2 arbs would be terrifying.

That depends on what you’re firing at. If the enemy has 5 Pierce Armor or less then 18% fire rate is better, with 6 Pierce Armor or more the +1 attack is better. Take for example Goth Halberdiers, which take 11 damage from Ethiopian Arbs or 12 damage from Arbs with +1 attack. In terms of damage per second the Ethiopian Arb is doing 8% more, and is very close to what a +2 Arb would be doing. In either case (+1 or +2) the Ethiopian gets gets the kill faster despite the +1/+2 requiring fewer hits (5 vs 6 to remove 60 HP).

3rd upgrade to the unit lines which only has 2 units CA BE SL scorpion.
Other buildings giving pop space
Smaller or bigger buildings 2x2 farms folwark etc.
Visible resources from the start (sheep forage sites shows up)

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Yeah but doing better at something you already did well isnt as good as being practically broken against stuff the units previously sucked against.

Fair point, and eliminating a threat keeps the archer numbers strong, while infantry isn’t much of a threat. I will point out that the top 5 civs currently are all cavalry focused, and not one of them has Arbalester. Maybe it sucks a little too much against cav.

I do also remember a time not too long ago when archers were meta because melee pathing was so bad. At that point a strong new archer civ was probably out of the question. These days that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Mongols already have this.

Kinda distributed with Cumans.

Chu Ko Nus are also OP for their cost lets face it, people don’t go for them that often because chinese have the OP techs discount to use arbalester really easily in imperial age.

Vils take up 1/2 pop space but civ lacks hand cart and most imp eco techs

Half pop vills is practically impossible to do in a balanced way. At best you may go with 30% less population