With other similar techs, I understand the reasoning, but this tech also affect archery ranges, so helps to transition between both units. Actually, I would like it affected kipchaks too.
I like it too. I was surprised because in every other cuman buff thread (or even in this one, Idk) players argue for replacing it
Lacking bracer is partially compensated with higher speed in imperial age, although it may be not sufficient.
Regarding siege, what if cumans could also research onager and maybe heavy scorpion in castle age? In case they committed too much in feudal age, this would help them to recover the distance. Although both upgrades are a bit expensiveā¦
To be fair, itās not nearly as useful in a 1v1, but itās at least not completely useless like Italian Silk Road (actually, thatās still useless in team games as well, but thatās another topic)
Also, most of the times your allies will get kipchaks that are better than yours, so the tech provides a really good overall value in team games.
So I would much rather replace steppe husbandry, as it really adds no value to the civ, while its units become severely underpowered in Imperial. The only thing this tech gives you, is the ability to send your units to the slaughterhouse faster
I think Mangonel in Castle age would swing too much the other way, itād be too OP. Scouts are not nearly as effective as Knights in sniping siege, and spears take Scouts down much faster than Knights. I think a feudal Scorpion with reduced range could be OK, but still, Iād much prefer getting rid of this siege workshop bonus altogether, and giving the civ something to compensate for the loss of bracer in imp.
It adds 25% HP and 33% attack and costs more than Imperial Age itself.
The Onager upgrade on the other hand, has a better blast radius, +1p armor (which is important), a better range and a unique ability to cut trees (I am obviously ignoring the attack and HP increase here too).
Although it costs almost an imperial age ā¦ 800F 500G instead of 1000F 800G. I cant think in situations when a cuman player would research this instead of waiting a bit more for imperial. Only if you are being harassing by archers and you have no army except mangonels? Or if you went all-in and forget to make 2 castle age buildingsā¦
And 40 seconds less than imperial ageā¦ I see only useful if you are in a tight hurry and need the upgrade as soon as possible.
Less is nothing, I wouldnt mind to receive this buff. It wont make them OP, open for new surprising strategies (cutting forests) and defense if you over-feudal-boomed and get attacked by archers.
Dude we are not talking about Mangonels. These are Onagers. They provide a threat to every land unit except Cavalry. Be it infantry, cavalry archers (outrange by 2 and still take 1 damage), buildings and even guard towers. A good shot can be deadly against massed cavalry too.
You are right, it can also be good against such units. I was too focused against archers because it is easier to use all their strength against archers and enemy mangonels/rams than against other units (CA can run away, infantry are not so stacked like archers).
It would be a nice buff, at least for closed maps where cumans struggle in late game. They would still struggle in late game with this buff, but perform better in late castle age.
In hideout, where cumans are very good, the buff would make them a bit OP because of the forest cutting.
In arabia, I doubt it would help too much. Only a bit.
i agree these are areas that could be used, but also dont forget there are a ton of overlapping civ bonuses/UTs where the UT is a better version of the civ bonus, but paid for (eg silk armour)
the point being you could still for example give siege melee armour, aka +2, and its less than the teuton UT, but free, same applies for hp
LOS wouldnt help much in feudal imo, although would help later on.
wood only comes way too late and would be too heavily abusable
pierce armour definitely could still work but only on scorps and mangos, but might come too late for the cuman issue
thats a big jump in power on the mango in castle age thoughā¦ going from the same range as xbows to +1 range on top of all the other benefits onager brings. i dont think its a bad idea, but might be abusable by pros?
yeah thats actually not so much of an issue, since the whole cuman design is more about extended feudal and extended castle age (eg camels, kipchak power drops off in imperial etc)
something else i thought of, cumans can build TCs if you are busy aging to castle age, yes of course the player can cancel it if they want, but its a huge sink of food and gold to abuse it
but the TC builds at the normal rate . so they still get their earlier TC, but not as early but also doesnt hurt their eco as much
The problem of cumans, in my opinion, is that their 2 main bonus (2Ā° TC and SW in feudal) arenāt that flexible, and all the outcomes are easy to anticipate by your enemy.
The SW is fine, it help put more pressure and punish a civ that is playing greedy and booming. Itās easy to counteract, but thatās fair since they are the only civ that can do it in feudal.
The TC is another problem, the times that takes is fine, if you have it build faster, but then train vills slower you achieve more or less the same objective, so I donāt think that itās the case for changing it. The biggest problem is that such strategy is easy to punish, since it force you to be super greedy, and if you donāt build it, you are basically playing with no bonuses.
The problem is, if you give them another bonus, on top of the extra TC, you risk to make their boom either easier or too strong. So you really need to be careful on choosing what you give them.
I donāt think that giving them free elite skirms upgrade would really help them and solve their problems, but the idea may be the right one. To give them a small tech for free as a small buff, that doesnāt make their extra TC too strong, but help in case you arenāt using that bonus.
Another suggestion, may be a new bonus:
They start with +100 wood.
This may be OP, so it need to be tested, but it may solve their problems. 100 wood more means a more flexible dark age, itās either a mill more (maybe for deers), or going to the feudal age with 100w more.
If this is the case, you can use that extra wood in a conventional way (more farms, archers, upgradesā¦) or as an help to either use the early SW or 2Ā° TC.
It generally make their eraly game more smoother and less punishable if you are greedy, and if you donāt use that, you still have a small eco lead.
Another idea may be:
Eco buildings(drop off points, markets, BS, uni and monastery)gives +5 pop.
Again, a small buff, that mainly allow you to save a bit of wood on houses (about 75w in dark age, and 50w in feudal at least). This bonus was suggested several time for other civs, but in my opinion it fit the cumans better for the following reasons:
It fits with their nomadic culture (coolness points never hurtsā¦)
It allow to save some wood, that is needed for both the 2Ā° TC and SW in feudal, and for the farms that needs to sustain double vills production.
It make you to house less if you train vills from 2 TCs.
It helps with pop space for extensive feudal pressure with archers, scouts and rams.
All in all, I prefer the second one, but the first one may work too.
Lastly but not leastā¦
The big elephant in the roomā¦
Usually, itās already pretty useless to have your ally train your units. See at genitours or IS, the condos may be the exception, and the kipchak may be it too (both are gold units at least). But then there is another problem, you can train only 10 of them.
Now the tech may be situetionally useful, like with magyars, they can try to spamm FU kipchaks with sipahi while you spam hussars with steppe husbandry, but you need to remove the 10 unit limits.
Then it open a problem, a cheap unit like the kipchak with UTs like recurve bow, sipahi, and such, may be too strongā¦ solution? Have them training not for free, but at the same wood cost, and 65 gold (30g more than cumans kipchaks, and 5g more than a standard CA).
The only problem is that now it it would become just a team UT, but itās better than a useless UT in both TG and 1v1ā¦
The problem still remains: What does the UT does for Cumans specifically?
It was a way to spend 650F saving 600W but now it is worse. I am not advocating your idea is bad. It is good for allies and balanced too. But Cumans arenāt getting better by this.
It does nothing, that why is a change that has to come along with one of the other 2 new bonuses that I suggested.
You basically solve their early game, and you give them a UT that help only in TG, but at least it helps. Some bonuses and UTs will inevitably be situational, or relegated to TG, or more useful for your allies.
This is the case for cumans mercenaries, it becomes useless for them, but useful for some of your allies. On exchange for that, you early game get buffed.
Cuman Mercenaries probably wasnāt designed as an addition into the main army of the ally. I think the idea is more that you can create those units and send them on a raid. I mean, some civs can probably incorporate the Kipchaks into their main army but it doesnāt feel like that was the intent, so using it that way probably sucks.
I would much rather get rid of the other UT, Steppe Husbandry, and give Cuman units some kind of stat buff to offset the lack of bracer.
were a really bad Idea. One game I was flank and my cuman pocket made a nonsense castle and cuman mercenaries when I needed scouts from him to fight back the enemy archers.
Itās useless because cumans are a designed pocket civ. They donāt help their teammates with this free kipchak. Itās just a complete waste of ressources when you need the pocket to hepl you to hold the flank.
Ermā¦ I think expecting a Cuman player to be able to hold anything is probably not the greatest plan, the best use of Cumans Iāve seen in tg was to drop second TC into enemy base
I disagree, rading with just 10 non-replaceble units, that on top of that lack bracer and are pretty squishi is pretty much uselessā¦ so if that was the intention, well itās pretty much like flaming camels, a joke.
Donāt get me wrong, 10 EK for a lower price may still be useful while under pressure, to kill rams or perform 1 raid, but thatā it, a 1000 resorces for a āone time use techā is just useless.
Burgundian vineyards, or paper money at least have the goal to give you an excange of resources that the market may not, so they can be fine as a one time use, youāll always use those resources, but 10 weak units may accomplish nothing.
Lol, steppe husbandry is one of the best techs in the game, and the only thing that is carring the cumans as they are now. Being able to spam 5% faster FU hussars at half of their training time is simply so strong, you basically make your way āred army-likeā and overwhelm your opponent, who care about bracer at that point when you have hussars puring in your enemy eco from every point.
Also, most likely the Cumans will never have the bracer, otherwise they would have given it to them from the startā¦
(actually, thatās still useless in team games as well, but thatās another topic)