I get you, they miss Knights, Scouts, BBC, Redemption, that’s true, but in order to take this discussion seriously we have to address the Elephant in the room, the Urumi.
The civ practically and conceptually have no UU.
As people told you, they dont need to counter Onagers efficiently (just like Vikings or Mayans), design must have holes in it in order to create room for strategy, HOWEVER unlike Vikings and Mayans, this civ lack the bombastic eco bonus that these two have, and therefore, also the ability to end the game fast enough.
Dravidians design doesnt offer real powerspikes and so is the snowball potential is quite non-existant.
I’d shuffle things up by completely replacing both Urumi and Wootz Steel with other content. (A hyper late-game gimmick, and an useless non-original UU, charge attack on an Infantry Unit means it wont be microable, which means- just a flat damage bonus, basically a Shotel, such a bad design)
Besides that, the Elephant Archer nerrative is nice, also the minor eco bonus, the over-emphasis on water is quite dissapointing, but this civ has potential on land with the right changes (major ones). One thing for sure, they cant have BBC on top of their greate EA.
You ask for a new civilization removing both the UU and the UT, I don’t think it will happen from the developers (Flemish Rev from Burgundians)
There should be a better way, an elegant way, to make the Dravidians a good civilization without being a copy of the Vikings; I don’t like the idea of giving them BBC (who knows, maybe that’s what they need)
Even if the Burmese and Sicilians continue to be tweaked with balance changes since they came into the game; I like how small changes to some civilizations can balance them (buff or nerf); take Vikings and Turks for example, losing Thumb Ring and Light line +1PA respectively
I’m totally with you brother, I was just being a hopeful and overly naive
I like these changes very much
Sicilians and Burmese are in an awful state to be honest.
Sicilians are sadly defined by their UT’s rather by any other component, despite having one of the most unique nerratives in the game (The Donjon-Serjeant one, which is a dead one practically).
Developers just gave them Hauberk which turned them into Burgundians, another boom into Knights civ. While I think the Donjon thing could be actually playable and viable.
Burmese are sadly another civ who relies on Elephants, it just doesnt work. Especially after losing Arambai (it turned into a niche late game unit that require a mass in order to be nicely utilized).
I find it a little too early to judge Dravidians, I give developers the grace period until the first balance patch. I wish for a remake/rework/redesign.
Maybe you don’t expect them to, but you force all of us to listen to it. Literally everything you believe wouldn’t necessarily make the game better for the masses, all of your opinions are about how the game could be made to match your ideals, rather than what the majority actually wants, which is a lot closer to now. Just because you may enjoy 1 type of game doesn’t mean everyone else does.
In general yes, onagers aren’t involved much because of how fast paced the game is but against Dravidians you can just tech into onagers in any game, it makes complete sense to do so. Not siege onagers but just onagers with siege engineers and some anti-halb units. And this is just assuming you’ve fallen behind to early aggression from Dravidians, which is also not always the case. If you’re not behind then you don’t even need onagers, you can just exploit their lack of mobility and win easily.
I think next set of balance changes will be August or October. And mostly this and a few other changes should come in for this civ. Otherwise its going to stay unplayable in maps with less than 30% water.
It has always bothered me that Indians don’t get Knights for as long as I’ve known about it (which I guess is inspired on Indians getting no horses at all in AoE3, which makes no sense imo).
I don’t understand why but people just defend unbalanced civ matchups on principle, as if players deserve to be at a dis/advantage for the civ they pick. Either they or they are traditionalists who consider restoring missing technologies to be “destroying their civs proud heritage”. However if the Devs gave Dravidians Redemption or BBC most of them would not complain.
i’d rather see them getting redemption since it can help in castle age already. and they do have block printing so converting bbc’s is also a possibility
Well there is no “proud heritage” to be destroyed if the civ is 2 months old. And if they could give siege engineers to Poles ofc they can give something that patch the Dravidians up.
Most of those are for balancing purposes (how would you expect American civs to fight castle without trebs?), and China apparently had elephants (though not used for war)
Eagle Warriors aren’t the same “exclusive” unit (they did exist in Aztec societies, so idk what you’re saying about fantasy) that is available to multiple civs (fire ships for example). And I have suggested replacing them with something more generic that could be used for civs from other regions where there are no horses, and maybe turn the existing Eagle line in a second Aztec UU.
Either way, why would any of this justify Indians not getting the Knight line? What do Indian civs get in exchange for it?
For Gurjaras and Hindustanis the answer should be pretty obvious, then the Bengalis get rathas. It’s only for the Dravidians that we are left wondering. I suppose they do get the most bonuses on foot/ranged units, and this was supposed to be the compensation for no kts. But I don’t think they are going to try and solve the siege weakness simply by slapping kts on them as cavalry isn’t their theme.
I love playing both. The old civs have their own schticks and cool things about them. Now, if you asked me whether Tatars need to exist when Mongols, Huns and Turks already do, I’ll argue. And no, “historical representation” is not a valid argument.
I think Tatars are a bit unique as they can really go for an archer opening which the other cav archer civs usually don’t.
Unfortunately silk armor seems to be a bit underwhealming what I actually don’t really understand why. It seems to not be enough to make their steppe lancers better.
Honestly is hard to justify making Steppe Lancers when your civ has Keshiks, FU heavy camels and Hussars and very viable Cavaliers.
Tatars have imho just too much cavalry units and Steppe Lancers fill really no role with such an overabundance of choices.