The problem with the unit is dark age training time. If that’s nerfed to something like 50-60 seconds you won’t have a swarm of champis in dark age. Beyond the first few minutes of feudal age it has identical stats to an eagle while requiring an extra upgrade like the militia line and costing a lot of food. Maa, scouts from some civs, 10+ archers with fletching, all of this can work against them if the south american civ player doesn’t get 5+ champis in dark age. So its not a unit without counters, just a unit that’s problematic in the dark age.
I think there are a lot of issues with the unit.
THe biggest is probably that it is given to civs with dark age bonusses, muiscas champi rush is way weaker than the others. And Incas is massively OP. Tupi is almost as strong, then Mapuche.
These civs even have then the Settlements which practically function as an additional Dark Age Bonus aswell.
Then they are too fast, train too fast, have no counter and anti-building damage. Even the Outpost building becomes relevant sometimes.
It’s a mess.
One easiest lever is probably to reduce their speed in dark age and give them increased LOS as compensation. That could at least reduce the timing a bit. But I think we need a counter aswell. Increasing the training time could backfire on “aggressive” maps when other civs could jsut pump out more militias…
Its mainly the 30 second training time. Settlements or 25 extra resources at the start is not a major bonus if you ignore champi training time. And again if these civs can’t make 5+ in dark age its definitely not a unit without counters. Its the same speed as eagles with 2 less damage vs cavalry. After the upgrade to champi runner it’s 1 less damage vs cavalry, but 1 more damage vs other units. The whole perception of being broken is due to the ability to produce several of them in dark age and run around before any military can be produced by the opponent. Its also fine to slightly reduce the speed for increased los and hp in dark age. But mainly training time has to be increased.
By design these civs are supposed to be ahead of other civs since they become extremely weak mid castle age onwards if game is even. That was a bad design but given that design champi play needs to be on the stronger side for these civs to survive.
I am not convinced they are so bad lategame. The Champi are a very viable lategame unit that isn’t too heavy on gold. They have other good gold units and (at least most of them) top tier trash.
The only things they might struggle against a bit are top tier Skirms and Siege. But these can’t work well from behind - so if these civs are ahead, they can snowball most games, even without being super far ahead in the early game.
And as I said, increasing the training time is the last thing I would do here because they replace the militia line. On very aggressive maps they might get really big problems if the training time was increased.
They’re weak vs cavalry and don’t have conversion resistance. Same p.armor as eagles. So knights, ca, monks all kill them from mid castle age onwards. Unlike eagles they have high food cost. So its not possible to put 20 vills on gold and spam them.
Two of those civs have bad monks, one of them also lacks bracer. Muisca with good monks lacks halbs. None of them get canons or alternatives like traction treb. No light cav to raid or snipe siege. Champi can be played for longer time than eagles but still not forever like light cav. All strong cav civs, CA civs, gunpowder civs will destroy them if they’re not well ahead.
Increasing the training time in maps were people go for Militia is still fine since they’re faster than militia and can buy time until feudal. I don’t think there’s any setting where someone goes for 5+ militias before clicking feudal age. So that’s the best stat to nerf to address this problem. Otherwise they’re a scout unit, you can’t make them weak and move much slower.
Yes. And that’s exactly why it’s not counting as a real counter. The Champi player can mass before and adapt or switch out of Champis when he sees what the opponent goes for in castle age.
CA I agree can be dangerous to the civs, especially Tupi. However these civs should have a seizable lead in early castle age (especially Tupi again), so it’s really a question if the CA player can get the mass he needs in time to be able to deal with the Champis - and it gives anough time to the new civs to look for strategic options against the CA play, as for quite a long time the CA play will be occupied in defense.
These civs are surprisingly well designed and offer a lot of potential at all stages of the game. Unfortunately we rarely see this in display currently. But I ensure you, you don’t need to fear too much about their lategame. They just need to be a bit ahead in castle age and they will do just fine.
(In some cases that’s not even necessary. Muisca and Mapuche have great raiding tools and can even work from behind)
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Regional units often come at the expense of lacking regular powerful units. American civs lack cav, the eagle warrior is more or less a replacement to light cavalry. Indian civs don’t have knights nor horse archers. The steppe lancer replaces mediocre heavy cav.
Meanwhile the paladin is an unofficial european regional unit, especially now that the Persians have the savar to replace it. And the paladin is a powerhouse of an unit, true not as strong as battle elephants at equal numbers bur more versatile thanks to their speed.
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Why cant we just give a mounted xbow unit to all the european civis without any regional units other than magyars bulgarians as a regional CA.
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I have always felt the same about the Franks after the introduction of Bloodlines.
They are a cavalry civ with subpar Light Cavalry and a generic Knight. Having Paladins with 6.7% more HP is very tame compared to what other civs get.
Obviously, I’m not suggesting any buff to Frank Paladins. They are just one of the civs that I don’t enjoy playing with much.
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