The latest in a long line of suggested reworks, but I want to put this out there because I feel like the fun play potential is out there. I won’t go into all the problems with the Cuman Mercenaries tech as it is now, we all know what it is. What would be a fun addition to the Cuman’s arsenal without completely breaking them or taking away from what they do well?
Cuman cavalry archers are basically pointless. There is almost no reason to make them over Kipchaks. Kipchaks are stronger, cheaper, and the usual prohibition against castles isn’t an issue for a Feudal-boomed Cuman player. Even if you lose the castles, why waste gold on weak CA when you could go for more gold efficient units or their strong siege?
In order to add some fun Post-Imp play, I think Cuman Mercenaries should be similar to the Poles’ Szlachta Priveleges–decrease the gold cost of cavalry archers by -60%. At 24 gold a pop, their CA become 20 wood and 10 gold cheaper than Kipchak, produce faster and from more buildings, but at the cost of having much worse damage output. You can flood the field with these cheap “mercenaries,” that while strong are still far from an optimal unit. They give the Cumans something to spam while remassing their Kipchaks or as a complement to their strong heavy cavalry or Hussar spam.
If nearly fully upgraded Cav Archers for cheap is too strong, you can always rebalance the gold cost to be something more similar to Kipchak–35-40 gold a piece. It’s still good, and competitive due to production buildings being so cheap and easy, but not as dominant.
I think this would make give the tech a lot more fun flavor and synergize well with an otherwise under-utilized castle age tech.
Your suggestion makes sense.
Once i suggested this tech to give +1 range to cavalry archers, so cavalry archers are at least decent at imperial age.
Anyway, i think this tech has to have a “long term benefit” and not only this “one time use”.
I ironically started modding not too long before this thread, specifically addressing Cumans, and this UT. Cuman Mercenaries does need a buff, as with all the other UT that doesn’t have a use in 1v1 games like that italian UT, but I would prefer their camel riders costing -36 gold or something to buff their camels, which is what I did. A cheaper and faster camel rider speed in imperial age can have very interesting synergy potential with their infantry. Huns already have cheaper cav archers, plenty of civ bonuses/UT upgrades that addresses cavalry archers, but not as much UT or civ bonuses addressing camels, especially the unupgradable camel riders that cumans have.
Or we could have the UT simply lower the gold cost of camel riders and heavy cav archers, but by a lower percentage. Regardless, the UT does need a long-term buff.
I like your idea overall, considering most suggestions here were to pretty much give Cumans Bracer (and therefore kill the civ).
Mercenaries are pay-to-fight kind of armies, I totally get the inspiration by Szlachta Priveleges, but it needs to be implemented a little bit different in my opinion, for the sake of balance, diversity and concept.
Cuman Mercenaries: Now removes the wood cost from Cavalry Archer line.
Now they’re truly mercenary troops, plus much different than Kipchaks.
Because Bracer also affects Kipchaks, Buildings, other archery range units, and gives +1 attack. Just giving +1 range as a UT is basically just a worse version of Recurve Bow though.
Cuman CA might not be meta but they have better stats than kipchaks, so if you make them dirt cheap then the issue is reversed and kipchaks become overshadowed in imperial age.
I agree cuman mercenaries should rework. Perhaps allow the tech to be researched repeatedly. For Cumans, the cost of tech is close to training 10 kipchaks.
This is an interesting thought, because it would remain essentially a TG tech since it relies on trade (whereas my suggestion makes it more viable in 1v1). It would be fun to test. You could move your eco entirely to trade carts and delete tons of vills, flood lots of units. An interesting concept, though I worry the unit will still feel underwhelming for the cost.
Trash camels is an interesting idea! It’s covered by the Byzantines in the same way Huns cover CA, to be fair. With 20 less HP and only 1 less attack, they may even outperform Byzantine camels if they were as cheap. They would be more similar to Kamadaran xbow rather than Polish knights. They would probably perform shockingly well in cost-effective fights with cav, but nothing that their fully upgraded halbs don’t already cover–except maybe vs enemy CA.
I really like your idea but I think @CactusSteak2171 pointed out the biggest problem with this change. I don’t think anyone will want Kipchak turns into another UU that is rarely seen due to meta. Although “Cuman Mercenary” being an Imperial UT is a positive side for Kipchaks to be still alive.
In a first sight I liked the idea, but then I read the [CactusSteak2171] coment adn I have to agree with him… I would be another bad design that make units compete instead o complement.
What if Cuman Mercenaries unlock an alternative button on castle that let you hire a batch of 5 FU Elite Kipchaks for a gold cost of 70G each kipchak. It would cost 350 gold each batch, but it would create in 20 secs.
Of course, UT’s cost should be reduced, of changed to only food and wood.
This way, you can hire some kipchaks that are more expensive, but efficient in early Imperial age.
An alternative could be make the batch cheaper, but hired Kipchaks would have a timer (like the charge bar in the Costilleur). When time is over hired kipchaks ends with the contract… Die…
I figured that there is already overlap between civ bonuses and UT between different civs so why not have a unique tech that is more specialized, unlike byzantines’ bonus, which is free, instant, and more broad rather than specialized? Only different is that this is a cuman UT, which byzantines dont have to research for their civ bonuses of irrc 3 cheaper different types of cavalry, which affects not only their gold cost, but also their food/wood cost. My UT idea addresses merely gold cost because I figure trash camel riders costing only food would be a bad idea, unless there are some tech tree nerfs, etc.
Having the Cuman Imp UT discount CA sounds like a good proposal to rework the UT. More fun than most of the proposals I’ve read.
I’d probably rename the tech as well as changing its effect, but that’s an esthetic issue.
Yes I think 60% gold discount is probably too much.
But if the (Elite) Kipchaks were cheaper to upgrade and more cost-effective than fully upgraded UT HCA, I think both Kipchaks and HCA would have their niche.
Kipchaks would be much better in situations were you don’t have much eco, and have APM to micro. They’d also remain the preferred choice in Castle age. And HCA would be better for spamming with 120 vills in post-imp.