Concept for making Eles anti-Infantry

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Hi.

As we all now should hav seen from hte latest attempt to make Eles work:
The current Ele design just doesn’t

So I want to make a concept that in my Eyes can work if implemented correctly.

The concept is to make Eles anti-infantry. With less HP but some Melee armor, higher speed so they can force fights vs infantry and also some Bonus damage.
This may sound a bit weird cause how can a unit be more usable if it’s specialised against a type of unit that often doesn’t even come into play in the midgame? The reason is: By reducing the amount of hard countersand instead give more of basically even matchups and some soft counters. Also with higher speed, Eles would be way more able to raid in the midgame which is currently a huge drawback for that unit.

Here are the base stats for the unit Design:

Name Battle Elephant Elite Battle Elephant
Armor Class War Elephant War Elephant
Produced at Stable Stable
Production Time 24 s 24 s
Production Cost 120 F, 70 G 120 F, 70 G
HP 200 250
Speed 1.15 1.15
ROF 2 2
Attack 10 Melee 12 Melee
Atk Bonus 5 vs Infantry 9 vs Infantry
Atk Bonus 10 vs Building 12 vs Building
Atk Bonus 10 vs Stone Defence 12 vs Stone Defence
Range - -
Accuracy - -
Melee Armor 3 4
Pierce Armor 2 3
Benefits from Cavalry Upgrades Cavalry Upgrades
Upgrade Cost 100 s 1200 G, 900 F
Special 25 % Blast Damage
Name War Elephant Elite War Elephant
Armor Class War Elephant War Elephant
Produced at Castle Castle
Production Time 25 s 25 s
Production Cost 120 F, 135 G 120 F, 135 G
HP 350 400
Speed 0.8 0.8
ROF 2 2
Attack 12 Melee 14 Melee
Atk Bonus 5 vs Infantry 9 vs Infantry
Atk Bonus 20 vs Building 25 vs Building
Atk Bonus 20 vs Stone Defence 25 vs Stone Defence
Range - -
Accuracy - -
Melee Armor 5 7
Pierce Armor 2 3
Benefits from Cavalry Upgrades Cavalry Upgrades
Upgrade Cost 75 s 1200 G, 1600 F
Special 25 % Blast Damage

It needs to be mentioned that all Elephant units in the process lose the “Cavalry” armor class, so they only receive bonus damage that are directiy geared against them.
Pikes then deal ony 16 Bonus damage and Halbs 30 Bonus damage vs War Eles.
And Skirms abour +5, elite skirms about +6 bonus damage. This ofc needs some testing to figure out if the soft counter Mechanic works then as Intended.
Lastly most of the Ele civs also get a civ bonus similar to the current Bengali Bonus that makes Eles harder to convert for the Opponent. It could be dependent on the civ how much. Like Persians and Burmese could get kind of big bonus whilst Malay none or something like this.

The change to the Pike / Halb bonus damage vs Eles and the Bonus damage of Eles vs Infantry leads to Pike vs Eles basically evenly matched. Which would allow for a new followup to eg. Knight rushes. If the archer player adds pikes to his xbows you can instead of making eskirms just add eles. If you outnumber the pikes value you could blast through them with the help of Lanchester and then attack the xbows, forcing the opponent to either make even more pikes or add something other like skirns.
Also for archer Civs it could be interesting to make a scout into Ele play against other archer civs. This would force them to go early into skirms which would open some strategical counterplays. Like just adding eco, making Siege or cavalry to kill the skirms before then transitioning into xbows yourself.

Vs Cavalry CIvs you would then (intendedly) usually end up with a unit comp of cav/camel + skirm vs ele + pike (LS). Vs Archer civs you would (intendedly) usually end up with archer/skirm (cavalry) vs ele + Mango (+ pike). Ofc to exactly achieve this there will be need of tweaking the exact stats a bit cause it’s really hard to predict this multi-unit comp interactions.

CA is also an interesting Topic as I actually think CA should somehow (soft) counter Eles. This might probably require to give CA 1 bonus damage vs Eles cause even with the HP reduction currently CA may have a hard time poking through the Eles HP in castle age. But this may probably be solved with just that one Bonus damage.

Some interations I don’t have fully thouight through yet how they would influence gameplay:

  • Scorpions: Probably just a little bit more Bonus Damage. Siege is intended to be kinda soft-counter
  • Mangonels: The same
  • Camels: Probably need some bonus damage, but not a lot. Just enough so the intended Camel + Skirm vs Ele + Pike matchup is effectively basically even
  • Meso/Eagles: Probably need some Bonus too cause the Mesos lack Cavalry and Eles have a Bonus vs Infantry then
  • HC: I think Would be good as an Ele counter. I’m not quite sure of how much bonus would be suitable. It would probably better to make it more a soft counter as Eles would often pair with Halbs in the lategame vs the cavalry civs (that usually then also have HC). So if HC would be too good vs the Eles it would probably lead to a disbalance there.

Potential changes to other (Elephant) units:

  • Elephant Archer: Negative CA armor removed. They receive bonus damage from skirms for being eles already.
  • Ballista Ele: Ballista Bolt now becomes a single-target attack that deals bonus damage vs cavalry… Intneded to build a synergy with the anti-infantry capabilities of the battle ele
  • Ratha: Loses the Archer/CA armor classes. also now benefits from cavalry armor instead of archer armor. Doesn’t benefit from Parthian Tacics anymor cause it isn’t technically a CA. This would allow Rathas to be effecitve vs skirms like knights and then synergize well with the new Battle Elephant design

(This is only a very short summary of all the thoughts I put in. I left a lot out cause It’s already quite complicated. But feel free to ask so I can explain some of the thoughts I made. Also ofc if you want to bring in your own Ideas.)

Edit: This concept is associated with a lot of other threads to this topic. I just wanted to make a new thread to not convolute the others. I have taken inspirations from a lot of other forum users and ideas that have been spread among the community like increasing elephant speed or giving them bonus damage vs certain other units, reducing the bonus damage taken from pikes/halbs and so on.

2 Likes
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I find it kind of funny that we have both a very recent suggestion to make infantry more viable by making it anti-elephant and one to make elephants more viable by making them anti-infantry. :wink:

(I have nothing to add about the actual content of the idea.)

4 Likes
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Sorry but it seems to be a super strong version of Teutons Knight (not Teutonic Knight). So what is the counter of this unit if this unit can counter pike and hal? and it also have 2 PA in castle age and resisit monk convertion. It seems like Frank paladin in AOK which the most effective counter is pike but pike also not that good to counter it

1 Like
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There are several soft-counters:

Skirm
HC
Siege
CA
(Monks)

Actually no, it’s evenly matched with Pikes and Halbs. They have bonus damage against each other. (and Eles then would receive less bonus damage whilst also having some less HP)

Also it is (almost) evenly matched with several other units. Especially in the lategame it’s intended to be even with Paladins. Whilst palas have better mobility, Battle Eles have the higher pop efficiency.

The key is that the unit doesn’t has a hard counter. Instead several soft counters and “even” matchups
I think this is the solution to make Eles balanced as they cost so much and have comparably low damage output for their cost. If you want to invest in such a unit you want the opponent to invest in the counters aswell. I think it’s just mandatory for such a unit that there is no hard counter cause this makes it too easy for the Opponents to react. Don’t forget that Battle eles have comparably low speed and damage output and therefore pose almost no immediate threat if not massed.

One thing to consider is that EG Khmer and Burmese don’t have access to paladin. But they potentially can mix in some EBEs to their cav to be able to somewhat compensate for that missing in the lategame. Malay and Vietnamese on the other hand can use the BEs more in the midgame as an tactical alternative to their standard archer play (as they don’t have the best archer play in comparison to the powerhouses).

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Speaking of no hard counter, I think in game there is actually a unit like this which is Bohemians Hussite Wagon. Very expensive, high damage but low ROF but overall it still have high tier DPS. Beating all type of archer, win all infantry in 60vs60, can hold a fight with paladin in 100vs100. However it is hard counter by Onager and BBC which developer even specifically design a new armor type so that Onager and BBC can have double damage on it like AOE4 bonus damage do.

I think a unit with only soft counter but no hard counter could be too OP. For example current Champion is a below average unit with its cost and stat. But however Malians Champion just because it has +3PA which make this unit that “soft counter” by all unit before of its poor stat (only hard counter by HS) which enough to say that Malians Champion is a top tier Champion because of its utility.

Currently elephant is very good against paladin becauase of its high HP and hard counter by Hal becauase of +60 bonus damage. After the changeI think a high utitliy tankiy unit with high HP (although a bit lower than before but still high) that only has soft counter would be a super saiyan version of Malians Champion and this new unit even run much faster than Champion. But given the current state of elephant. It is worth to change the elephant like this. I think if it is the path then the stat of elephant would be nerf like champion below average stat say 150 HP and it imp damage maybe 9+4 but have bonus on building and infantry so that it would be eventually balanced

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I have problems understanding you but I will try my best to answer you regardless.

Imo Hussite Wagon is a bad Example. Cause it has several (hard) counters:
Siege
Monk
Cavalry

Possibly. But I think HW are more expensive than Paladin and harder to mass.

I think the units that come most close to “having no hard counter” are:
Obuch (just because of the pure power)
Kamayuk
Cataphract (Bec of bonus damage res and own bonus damage / logistica)
Leitis (Pure atk power)
Konnik (Unmounted vs anti-cav)
Coustillier (Bec of Charge)
TA
Jannissary
Urumi (Sheer damage)

Most of them don’t poe any problem. Just some of them cause they have generally too many favorable matchups without the need of overy investing into them. Some of them like Coustillier because of the high snowball potential but that’s no risk given to the postponed ele design.

I don’t think HW are a good example here.

The thing is ofc these are all UUs that usually need a castle to be massed, it’s a different topic for common units.

We will never figure out if we don’t try. I think we can count CA in that category cause it’s effectively there. Maybe not in a pure matchup fight but how it is effectively used. Thing ofc is that CA usually only reaches this status in the lategame whilst the new BE are designed to be more of a midgame alternative/addition.

I think this is a pretty fair comparison here. And seemingly Malians infantry isn’t a huge issue atm despite having no hard counter in the midgame. Ofc they are slower than the postponed Elephants, which reduces their utility. But I think they somehow showcase that units with no hard counter can work as long as they don’t overpower the common “power units”. Especially in the midgame.

Which I want to reduce to make this matchup more even.

I think nerfing them to ############# 270 HP, 12 atk and bonus vs building is enough. With that they should be evenly matched with Paladin which is the intended state I wanted to put them in.
As you mentioned the bonus vs Buildings is a nice way to differ them from the Paladin utility. But at the same time they would miss significantly on the mobility aspect. I think it’s a kinda fair tradeoff.
IDK how you could explain people why Eles would have less HP than Paladin, that doesn’t makes sense to me.

Edit: ############ <= I don’t even know what I could have written there tbh 11… Can we please at least see what was censored when we try to edit it out? 1111

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I agree with all what you say. The last thing I concern that is the number of upgrade it has.

Normally if a general unit don’t have two imp upgrade, it will not be too OP (see Arbalester in mid imp). Usually the first upgrade is a bit cheaper and the second upgrade is very expensive. Unit that have two imp upgrade are
2HS => Champion
Cavalier => Paladin
Heavy Camel Rider => Imperial Camel Rider

Current elephant does not have issue with it becauase its upgrade cost is actually the second imp upgrade and, its stat is too OP for anything other than Hal which hard counter it with +60 damage. But if it is just soft countered by Hal, I think it would be an issue that one upgrade unit can have such high utility.

Therefore I think it is okay that one upgrade ele can have more HP than Cavalier but slightly low HP than paladin, unless elephant also have two imp upgrade then it would be fine. Or just increase the upgrade time to say 270s which are the upgrade time of Cavalier + Paladin given the fact that it would be a paladin level power house

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Arb is only “OP” vs castle age as there is no effecitve castle age counter. Also it’s more because of in total +1 range and +3 atk of all the imp upgrades combined. And Bracer should actually be counted as the “real” Arb upgrade.
And also otherways I can’t really follow. Most middle imp upgrades are kinda bad. Some units become just good then despite having kinda bad upgrades because of how the game develops in imp.
And Arb is actually overall a kinda bad unit in imp. Costs a lot of gold. Immobile.Effectively countered by 2 of the trash units that become strong there. Also Bad vs Siege that also sees much more use.

Speaking of Siege. some of the siege units have 2 imp upgrades. And the latter ones are in the ballpark of paladin on their utility.

So no, I can’t really follow that point.

It’s the same with my concept.

It has more ranged counters then. Especially in the lategame with more siege and HC. That’s why I think it needs that HP in comparison to the cav line. Imo having more ranged counters at this stage requires you to have overproportionally more HP as ranged units can build ###### ###### You need to be tanky enough for closing the gap.

They literally cost 40 % more res than heavy cav. Ofc they need to have more HP then, especially if they move slower. I don’t know where you want to go here, but I don’t think you can justify reducing the HP of Eles that cost so much more and are designed to be tanky beasts to have less HP than Paladin. That doesn’t make sense at all.
I already reduced the Base HP of Battle Eles. With bloodlies they now have 30 % more HP / Investment than knights in Castle age. Yes they have then 37 % more HP / Investment than Cavalier but only 6 % more HP / Investment than Paladin already. If I would reduce the HP even more, Paladins would actually be more tanky for their cost than EBEs… Which is silly imo. BTW Franky Palas alre already as tanky per investment as the proposed new EBEs…

I don’t think this is necessary. I think having that one kinda expensive imp upgrade for BEs is a good tradeoof and differs them from other units. Whilst arb is kinda cheap, Paladin is very expensive and takes time. EBE is then somewhat in the middle of both.

Don’t think so. It’s actually intended to not scale as well in the lategame because of the mentioned ranged counters. This ofc is a tweak that adresses the pop efficiency issue of that unit. Imo Paladin is a stronger Powerspike generally speaking. Especially in TGs as then EBEs would be basically evenly matched with Paladins but more countered by Siege which plays a huge role in lategame TGs.
Also don’t forget the mobility aspect. Whilst the proposed Elephants are now way faster, they still are substantly slower than Heavy Cav. Meaning that the Heavy Cav can always just not take the direct figh or force it when in disadvantageous/advantageuos situation.

The only real “overpowering” factor that EBEs would have is that they would shut down lategame infantry spams like them from Goths completely (though the Goths halb spam could still be a threat to the EBEs). But this is fairly situational and most Infantry civs have decent alternatives.

Please understand that the design of having no hard counters but more soft counters is a tweak that enables the “slower, but more tanky + pop efficient” design of the Eles. Other cav has the advantage of the high mobility so they can escape most threatening situations quite easily. Especially against the slow hard counters. But when Eles are slower they need to be a bit more resilient vs the counter mechanics otherwise it’s just too easy to counter them. That’s how it currently is and we all see the result. I pushed the counters more towards the ranged side cause it’s a) more accurate and b) it balances out the pop efficiency issue in the lategame as ranged units benefit more from army sizes. So heavy cav is more countered by melee and eles more by ranged units, that’s the compensation for the pop efficiency factor.
I actually see less risk with my EBE design than the current cause in my design EBEs have 50 less HP and 2 less base atk. Ofc to compensate they also have 3 more melee armor, but in general they are less generally threatening than the current EBEs.

1 Like
11

Totally understand your concept and design.

Current elephant has 1/2 armor in castle age and 1/3 armor in imp, compared to knight line which are 2/2 and 2/3. I think your elephant may have -1 PA which is 3/1 castle age and 4/2 imp age if they are weak against arrow. Yes they will take more damage from building but they are high HP so it should be fine. And they also will take bonus damage againist ranged unit so that it can be soft counter by archer meanwhile they can also act like a meatshield to absort archer damage which is kind of cool.

I feel like it is a completely different unit from current one which more focus on melee fight and weak againist archer. In current game:

Bengalis have melee resistant elephant
Burmese have PA elephant
Dravidians have armor ignoring elephant
Khmer have fast moving and high damage elephant
Malay have cheap elephant
Vietnamese have high HP meatshield elephant

I think your elephant match the thread of Bengalis and Vietnamese. For Burmese, Dravidians and Khmer they may keep the current design or have a large adjustment on your design. For Malay it is fine

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I think this can also be an alternative design.
But no for me it is intended they still have that pierce armor. Cause without it they would be very vulnerable to archers. Instead I wanted other ranged units to counter them.
The design nerfs them in both matchups vs archers and heavy cav not only one of them. Yes it is more a nerf vs cavalry but on the other hand they get buffed vs pikes which are usually paired with archers and nerfed vs skirms that are usually paired with cavalry, so it’s ok to me that the nerf hits them more in respect to the matchup vs archers.
But it’s neither designed to be directly countered by archers nor cavalry, just a reduction to the pure fighting capability of the eles in exchange for their bonus vs infantry and speed buff.

But yes a anti-cav but weaker vs archer design could possibly also be an idea. I just don’t know how this can be implemented effectively cause of the speed issue.
Also it seems like being kind of redundand with camels, no? Except for the mobility and pop efficiency ofc.

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