Dravidians are terrible

At this point, I think you are reading me in bad faith, or you genuinely have a problem with this civ. I already said that I just want them to be viable. Let me repeat, they are bottom 3 now. I want somewhere closer to 50. Ideally, every civ should have win rates close to 50% on all maps, yes.

About removing their bonuses completely, who said that? I don’t even understand what you are getting at, there. Also, to repeat, most games, by far, are played on land maps.

So…why does it matter? We can add Morass to the conversation now. Bam, civ fixed!

Again, to be clear, MY MAIN POINT IS THE LOW WIN RATES AS DEMONSTRATED ON AGEOFSTATISTICS. Torments have too small a sample size to proerly guage a civ.

Alright, I don’t think there’s a point to this. You do you, bud. I like this civ, so I’ll continue to push for some balance.

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Aztecs have eagles, had 18% faster military production, strong monks. Slavs have knights and even with 15% faster farming they didn’t dominate any single tournament. They were like 6th or 7th in terms of win rate and pick priority. Even today if they get back 15% farming rate they won’t be OP but a top-tier civ comparable to the likes of Poles, Khmer.

Clicking castle age when opponent has around 550 food means you’ll be castle age a min or 1:30 mins sooner and 2 BE won’t even reach the opponent base by then. Malay already get that timing advantage along with 2 extra vills from dark age and they also have 30% discount on elephants. Yet its very rarely made. AND Literally no one dies to 2 BE, without husbandry they can’t even chase down vills. At best you’ll cause some idle time before 4 knights come out.
After rightly calling BE as useless in every thread yourself, why on earth would you suddenly exaggerate something like this.

While I agree that its not a good argument to generalize anything from one game, that game kinda shows the weakness the civ has in castle age and how it literally makes it impossible to play and how skirms + high p.armor fast melee unit combo counters Dravidians completely.
Wootz steel light cav is good, better than Korean hussar and maybe even the celtic ones but that’s about it. Damage output alone isn’t what makes cavalry powerful. -20 hp and -2 p.armor for +3 or +4 attack is an unfavorable trade in most situations.

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So why are tournament games brought up? Shouldn’t that be where the pros actually shine - and clearly they think Dravidians are good enough - and the civ performed well enough - in the biggest tournament.

Which is from May to August. We’re in November now, we could use a more up to date website. More than likely people did not adjust to the civ. It is an unconventional civ, sure.

It only shows that streaming in Longswords one by one to fight a Skirmisher mass does not end that favourably to you.

Of course damage output alone isn’t what makes Cavalry powerful. They aren’t great at raiding, but shouldn’t be underestimated either. In late trash wars, they can still be used.

  1. I didn’t bring up tournaments. I only said their win rate was around 50%. After that, I tried to get away from that point, and brought up the statistics point multiple times.
  2. Pros at that level doesn’t only rely on how strong a civ is. They could be playing mind games, know about a strategy another player would be vulnerable to, etc. To get an accurate reading, you need a whole bunch of people playing against each other at random. Once you have a large sample size, you have reliable info. You have to understand that they know each other, so their individual weaknesses are as important as civ weaknesses.

Which is from May to August. We’re in November now, we could use a more up to date website. More than likely people did not adjust to the civ. It is an unconventional civ, sure.

The only change dravidians had was getting bombard cannons, which only really helps against siege onagers and building. EAs received a mild buff, but most people agree that EAs are a weak and food-expensive unit anyway. Most importantly, they received a nerf as crossbow and arb costs were increased. I can infer for myself that they are nowhere close to 50%.

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But also, the civ was new. Again, I’m not saying that they don’t need a buff. That’s not my point. Saying that they need a good Stable is.

Giving each unique civ the same techs dilutes the individuality of the civs. You need to design Dravidians around lack of Knights. Why does every civ have to be the same Knight civ? Could that be why the winrate was low, because everyone had just gotten too used to spamming Knights mindlessly?

Let civs be different. They can raid - not as well as other Hussar civs, which is fine - but they still can. They have strong Siege + Halb pushes. They have strong Archer openings. EAs are treading a very thin line, as Dravidian EAs already do a lot of damage, buffing them too much will just swing to the other extreme. Kshatriyas suggestion is fun, as it’ll allow them to make EAs much more (and also Infantry, which tends to be food-intensive too).

They can’t raid. Also, they can’t defend except full walling. Dravidian EAs are extremely weak against a LOT of units. Elephant+Cavelry+Archer+Cav archer armour is what they have. All of those are terrible. Also, they aren’t good at raiding, and they give lower dps than an equal cost of xbows while also having a lower range.

Just read my original take, I think we’ll find some common ground there.

ORIGINAL TAKE

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Depends on your definition of “Amazing”.
Every civ should have at least 45% W/R in Arabia 1v1.

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They have 48% W/R in Arabia and 60% in Arena.

Should have been rephrased. They had almost 100% pick/ban in every tournament.

I said “Reaching”, not clicking.

Because 15% faster food = Franks+Slavs+50% Britons+40% Mongols, yeah doesn’t sound broken at all.

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Which was bonkers. Villager garrisoning in resource camps is a novel bonus for a new civ. Buffing EAs ‘A LOT’ will make them OP. They are strong, just too expensive to field a lot of them in early Castle Age. Again, Dravidian EAs have a strong DPS output. They are also an easy transition for Dravidians, from Crossbows to EAs. Your proposed suggestion makes them even worse, ironically. But also, keep in mind that if it’s Skirmishers (and/or) Halbs that you fear, you have… better Skirmishers, Mangonels, Champion, Battle Elephant?

In similar ironic vein, your third suggestion makes the civ less interesting. Again, just giving Hussar is boring, and Husbandry is not as impactful. You need to have Blast Furnace for your infantry, there is no ‘cavalry attack’ upgrade at blacksmiths. Fragile Light Cavalry with Wootz is far more interesting than what you proposed. I’d much rather have Bloodlines not Hussar anyway, but that is against their intended design.

They were getting sniped by the skirms since longswords aren’t fast enough and hard to get in numbers because of being food intensive.

Of course they can be used in late game. But the value you get from investing into them is far less compared to fully upgraded generic hussars or even light cav.

Empire wars tournament with water and shore fish maps and Dravidians with 200 wood makes them not the worst civ. Doesn’t mean its universally usable. Neither empire wars, nor water maps are very rarely played in ranked. Shore fish maps don’t even show up in the map pool most of the times. Before the patch when they didn’t start with 200 wood, they were almost never picked (2 out of 120 drafts in qualification stages).

In this particular case I guess it is to show that neither of the players were trolling around or playing casually and that it was a serious try hard game between 2 topmost level players.

4 months is quite a lot. I agree that it takes one or two months to get used to an unconventional civ. But after that if the civ was good it would have fared well enough. Maybe if not top-10 atleast like top-25. Not bottom 5.
And right now unfortunately all stats sites are obsolete because of the api change but if we ever get an updated site with Sept-November stats, I don’t think Dravidians will be in the top-20 on most maps.
You might be asking why should they be a top-20, because there’s no point in adding a civ just for the sake of it, if its largely unusable on most of the maps.

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They get sniped because Villese was throwing them away. You can mass up a little and take the fight. Many considered it to be an early GG anyway. That game isn’t really proof of…anything.

Removing a bonus makes a civ not great, who’d have thought? Again, the ‘water’ part is overfocused. An actual water map was played twice. Starting to be so selective about what niche situations the civ is weak in, is a weird take. Considering only Arabia is also… not a good way to look at a civ. Yes, it’s the most popular map. No, you don’t need each civ to be good on open maps.

Exactly, so players aren’t just trolling and considered Dravidians to be a great civ in Empire Wars.

More like three months, right after the civ was released. The data is unreliable by now. Early losses will still be counted, not magically throw the civ to a higher winrate. I don’t think Dravidians are an amazing civ. It is unconventional and has visible weaknesses. That is not a bad thing.

Or maybe, a civ that is only good is Arabia is therefore worthless to be added, because it would be ‘unusable on most of the maps’? Weird to say that Arabia is so important, while also saying ‘most of the maps’ is so important. So which one is it, Dravidians clearly seem good on hybrid/water maps? Probably better on closed maps too, due to getting to boom.

EAs:

  1. They aren’t much costlier than a knight.
  2. Strong DPS, weak to both skirms, spears, and knights. Most importantly, they move slowly, so they can’t evade anything. Low range, so they can’t snipe vils and spears.
  3. Did you even read the OP? This is EXACTLY what they addressed. You make EA, they make skirm, you make skirm, they make knight. Now you have nothing.

You can work around the cav attack limitations. Just lower it artificially, give it some pierce armour.

Dravidian BEs are Rubbish. Please watch the mikeempire videos. They are the worst eles(as listed IN THE WIKI), they cost a LOT, and any monk will take them out.

This post makes me think you really don’t know what you are talking about. You repeated a point that OP already showed as wrong, and you are seriously suggesting champions in the archer-knight meta, and officially the worst battle elephants. If you’ve played this civ, you’d already know this. And you call my post bonkers.

Have a good one, mate. I’m seriously done with you. I hope nobody takes your points seriously here, most of all the devs.

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I said that as one of the options. Why are you selectively ignoring what I’m saying? You have Mangonels. Halbs against Knights. You even have monks, though not as good.

Lmao. When has MikeEmpires ever shown a good fight? Their videos aren’t anything scientific, just naive fun. I can’t believe this is a serious suggestion.

Dravidian BEs are fine in Castle Age. You lack Husbandry and Bloodlines, which is whatever. I’m not saying you make 40 of those, I’m saying if Skirmishers are your problem with EAs, you have options to deal with that, a few Battle Eles is enough to push Skirmishers away or tank some hits. Heck, you can even do just Armored Elephants if you really wanted to.

Something something bad faith. I guess you just love to selectively ignore anything people say like you selectively ignore every field Dravidians are great in.

Hyperbolic buffing to EAs is not the solution you want.

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Yes it doesn’t because those civs have other bonuses. For starters all these civs have knights with husbandry, Britons cheaper tcs, faster ranges and +1 range on crossbows from castle age, Franks have free extra hp on knights and free mill upgrades and cheaper castles, Slavs get stone cost replaced with wood post mid-game, Mongols have the best uu in game, extra hp light cav, 25% faster firing CA.
When you don’t have knights nor CA and the worst stable, 15% faster food universally is probably just sufficient enough to make them usable. Its like pre-2020 Aztecs but with no eagles nor monk bonus. Khmer farms were like 20% faster before their farming nerfs and even with 15% faster BE, it wasn’t the common opening on most standard 1v1 games. So for godsakes DONOT exaggerate BE. BE are just niche closed map TG units. And without elite upgrade, Dravidian BE will be unusable there as well.

Blatant exaggeration and you definitely won’t reach castle age when opponent has 600 food on land maps. Maybe on Nomad or a shore fish map. But even then 2 BE does NOTHING.

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Weren’t Khmer Battle Eles the sole reason they got majorly nerfed, though?

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Please
Dravidian ele archer fire faster than mangudai

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They were very strong in Team games. Khmer playing BE as pocket was actually outplaying Franks. So the Frank picker community complained A LOT and got them nerfed to a point where Khmer are just above average and BE are nearly unusable. Same reason why Lithuanian late game knight-line and extra p.armor Indian camels got nerfed as well.

For 1v1, Khmer BE were a solid usable option but not their main meta.

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Yeah, obviously. Just like your over exaggeration on how bad Dravidians are.

Khmer had 38% W/R b4 farming buff. And they got only 6.5%-7% faster farming which later nerfed with a 3% slower farming as a draw back for the bonus. And still needed heavy BE nerf. Yet they are sitting 48%-49% W/R in Arabia. If you still believe that 15% faster food collection is not broken, let’s just agree that you’re also over exaggerating lack of knights.

He was talking about BE.

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And chu ko nu fire even faster. So?

If you want to make a point, please formulate it properly.

Also, I was talking about Battle Elephants in that particular, which are absolutely garbage.

You know what, tell me a viable strategy with Dravidians that’ll consistently work against a knight-mangonel push, supported by skirmishers usually, or pikemen (they can easily figure this out by scouting) without sacrificing imperial age.
Start from early castle age, and full open land map.

Urumi is insanely strong in late game, you aren’t aware of how strong Urumi is, it beat Samurai in total resources even though Samurai has +12 bonus attack, %33 faster attack and Samurai cost more gold (30 gold vs 20 gold). 0 PA isn’t enough to stop Urumi in late game. Mangudai and Ethiopians Arbalest probably do well against Urumi but even Hand Cannonners except Bohemians doesn’t work against Urumis I am not joking. Ururmi is weird designed units and OP in late game unless opponent have top 5 archer civ.

Problem is Dravidians struggle to reach that point because Dravidians Castle Age is pretty weak and has no power spike in Late Castle Age or Early Imperial unlike most civs (Viking, Britons and Japanese eco bonuses snowball in late Castle Age, Britons gain another +1 range in Imperial Age. All of these civs have Earl Imperial Age power spike but Dravidians doesn’t have). Solution of Dravidians is probably giving late castle age power spike. Adding Knight, Husbandry and, Medical corps gives 10 hp/minute (this is their Castle Age power spike) for all units is my proposal.

I don’t like Cataphract design but I must admit that Cataphract is very strong complementary tool of Byzantines in late game. FU Cataphract can clear majority of late game units such as Halberdier, Skirmisher, HCs and Hussars. Common tactic with Byzantines in late game that massing 15-20 Cataphract during trash wars and cilear opponent’s trash army with prepared 15-20 Cataphract. Cataphract is cut out for this strategy,.