Dravidians are terrible

[_Dustyacer1]

@benithisrael

I believe this post should the point of closure for this thread.

i dont really how this is but ok

@benithisrael

All Economy techs researched instantly

just a better new viet tech. Basically a viking bonus but u still need to pay for it.

@benithisrael

Age up cost -20% food

just a different italian tech?

@benithisrael

[Remove Siege wood Discount] [Remove +200 wood] [Remove +15 fish carry capacity]

why though? I understand the fish/siege if u really wanted to but the +200 wood is a core part of their identity. But even the fish bonus is fine, it makes them strong on lots of shore fish maps and water maps in general so something fun for tourn drafts but i can see why people don’t want it.

@benithisrael

Blacksmith and University upgrades for Galley line 50% cheaper.

so they have op archers? No. This is so massive. Not even including all the other op shit you gave them.

---

Their stats are fine

The biggest “problem” is that they are massively strong in non-arabia teamgames, particularly bc of their team bonus

[filtercoffee488]

@_Dustyacer

The biggest “problem” is that they are massively strong in non-arabia teamgames, particularly bc of their team bonus

This is a water map issue, and some of us have been discussing it already. But they aren’t overpowered.

Also, all of your stats are across all Elos. That means it is extremely biased, inaccurate and unreliable.

@benithisrael on other hand, restricted the Elo range, which makes it more reliable. Take stats of 1200+ Elo, and you’ll see a different picture.

[_Dustyacer1]

@filtercoffee488

This is a water map issue, and some of us have been discussing it already. But they aren’t overpowered.

yes sorry i shouldve specified water maps specifically. Maybe overpowered arent a good word but rather top tier. Number 1 overall teamgame civ, included land maps pulling the wr down (even though they are picked a lot less on land maps, but there are many “water” civs with water bonuses and even water teambonuses (ie. vikings dock bonus).

As for it being across all elos, then they are still number 1 civ, although it is mainly nomad pulling it up. Their wr after sorting to 1200+, only changes by 0.01%, which larger confidence interval of 0.25 (from 0.88 to 0.63).

[filtercoffee488]

@_Dustyacer1

yes sorry i shouldve specified water maps specifically. Maybe overpowered arent a good word but rather top tier

So, what exactly is your issue? Turks and Bengalis are top tier closed game civs (top 3 definitely), but terrible to mediocre in everything else.

You said this: “The biggest “problem” is that they are massively strong in non-arabia teamgames, particularly bc of their team bonus”

How is this a problem, when the win rate is 52%? Around 47-53% is the most acceptable range.
Also, at top level arabia team games, their win rate 45%

[SMUM15236]

My final thoughts
TB: Dock gives +5 pop space → Infantry +3 attack bonus vs siege
Medical Corps:

1. Also affects militia line.
   or
2. Militia line +30 HP (I asked this in May 2022, 1 year after DOI and most people said it will be OP). Remove Champion if necessary although I don’t think it is necessary. Same arrow resistance as Malians in Castle Age. In Imperial Age survives 25 arbalester shot compared to 35 from Malians. Have BF and Wootz Steel though.
   or
3. Militia line +15% speed and +1 PA. Again almost same situation as previous. Same arrow resistance as Malians in Castle Age. In Imperial Age survives 24 arbalester shot compared to 35 from Malians. Have BF and Wootz Steel and extra speed to compensate. Maybe this one is better than previous because +30 HP with Wootz Steel basically means they will shred any melee units and Urumi will be unemployed.

I personally believe Dravidians should have the most multi-dimensional and maybe one of the best militia line to address their weakness. I’m throwing a lot of bonuses on them just like Romans scorpions. But considering both militia line and scorpions are out of meta units, a lot of bonuses are necessary to make them viable.

[_Dustyacer1]

my issue is with buffing them. The fact that they arent actually terrible. If u buff them they’ll actually become op in water teamgames, so u have to do it carefully.

[filtercoffee488]

@_Dustyacer1

The fact that they arent actually terrible.

No, be more specific. They aren’t terrible in water map team games. That’s like 1% of all games played. The way you initially phrased it sounds like you want them nerfed. Which is fine, but then say so.

Nobody is disagreeing with you here. I am completely in support of changing their team bonus, although I have my disagreements with @SMUM15236 about what it should be. All buffs for all civs should be made carefully, that’s just obvious.

They are below 50% on all maps except water maps, and have closer to 46% on Arabia at high elo. That absolutely warrants a buff imo.

[Pulikesi25]

@TungstenBoar

Theres nothing wrong with the extra wood or the carry bonus

The carry bonus is good for fishing ships. Its a gimmick for fishermen. Its like 0.5-4% faster work rate for the first 7 or 8 mins. After that people build a second mill.

@benithisrael

Dravidians are still terribly designed. Gamersons and biggest update patch didn’t do anything. They are back on the way to bottom.

The devs just took one of his ideas and gave it to a different civ. 11

@_Dustyacer1

my issue is with buffing them. The fact that they arent actually terrible. If u buff them they’ll actually become op in water teamgames, so u have to do it carefully.

You can put it as a rework overall but I think most people here want a buff specific for land. If they got a big boost to their eco, that would buff them on water as well and that might be a problem which I believe is your concern. But people have been discussing about other ways of buffing them to make them more usable on land.
And as far as stats at sub 1200 go, I think a lot of players picking Teutons, Goths and playing with infantry might create that bias. I’d use aoepulse or aoestats 1900+ stats over more than 1 patch for reference.

[SMUM15236]

@filtercoffee488

I have my disagreements with @SMUM15236 about what it should be. All buffs for all civs should be made carefully, that’s just obvious.

I respect our disagreement. But you never suggested any to balance water maps TG. Granted that is 1% but it is a tournament situation. As you know devs will give that a priority over ladder any day. Also an UT to give infantry extra attack only against siege is really underwhelming Aztecs UT.

[_Dustyacer1]

@filtercoffee488

That’s like 1% of all games played

but its not. in teamgames, about half of dravidian games are on water map. for total team games maps, nomad itself is just a 13% play rate, which is barely behind arabia’s 17% playrate. I dont really want to do an indepth calculation of how many players in a teamgame water map vs. all games included single player. But water maps is a lot more prevalent than u think.

Sorry for the lack of intention that my post conveyed but what i meant was here

@_Dustyacer1

Their stats are fine

in direct post countering their awful stats.

And when i said “problem”

@_Dustyacer1

The biggest “problem” is that they are massively strong in non-arabia teamgames, particularly bc of their team bonus

i meant problem with their design and whats holding them back from a buff.

To be honestly i was pretty clear with my post imo.

[benithisrael]

@_Dustyacer

just a better new viet tech. Basically a viking bonus but u still need to pay for it.

What’s wrong with that. For a bad design like Dravidians, a very powerful economy bonus is needed to make counters quickly otherwise the problem of Dravidians no come back strategy will become an identity. Right now, dravidian bonus other than +200 wood and dock pop space bonus everything else is piecemeal.

The age up bonus is thematical and suits the civ. Tamil was one among a handful of very few, very old, oral and written languages. Dravidian civ is based on Tamils. So an Age up bonus is thematically correct.

@TungstenBoar

Thats dumb

At that point, they must as well be a completely new civilization.

If they did not design such a dumb civilization, there would not be a thread called “Dravidians are terrible” with 400+ posts. If modifying the civ is such a hard task, they can split the civ into Tamils and Dravidians. Hopefully in the next iteration they would have learnt how to design a civ without Knights.

@Pulikesi25

The devs just took one of his ideas and gave it to a different civ. 11

Lets split them and fix them.

There are enough bonuses discussed here to fix both the civs. The fish carry capacity can be made into a team bonus. The dock giving +5 pop space can be given to the new civ. Thus making the +200 wood and dock giving pop space not a deal-breaker on water.

Dravidians:

• 200 wood on age up
• All eco techs are researched instantly [except market]
• Barraacks technologies -50% cheaper
• Skirmishers and elephant archers fire +25 faster
• Units and buildings take -50% bonus damage from Siege weapons

Team Bonus: Fishermen and Fishing ships carry +10

Unique unit : Urumi and Tirisadai

Unique tech: [Replace ‘medical corps’ with “STRIKE CORPS” - Effect of Barracks technologies is doubled
[Replace woots Steel with ‘damboli’] - In addition to arrows, Castles and TCs fire a ‘Trebuchet’ like volley at same range of Trebuchets

Tamils: [Foot soldiers and Naval civ]

• Age up needs 25% less food
• All unit production buildings are 20% cheaper [TC, castle and other military except docks]
• Blacksmith and University upgrades for Galley line 50% cheaper.
• Barracks, Archey range and monasteries work 25% faster
• Siege costs -33% wood

Team bonus: Docks provide +5 pop space

Unique unit: Monk type with LOS and conversion range of 12
Unique unit: Flame thrower at 10:33 min

Unique techs:
Castle age - Bhakthi movement - Monasteries are upgraded to temples which work 200% faster and produce half-priced monks
Imperial age - Poombuhar shipyards - Galley line and Elephant archers fire a second projectile that does half the damage

I think @SMUM15236 will agree now both civs will be balanced on water.

Both civs get fully upgraded hussars without final armour in blacksmith.
“Wootz Steel” is the regional attack available at blacksmith for both civs in imperial age

[SMUM15236]

@benithisrael

I think @SMUM15236 will agree now both civs will be balanced on water.

Well, first of all we are not getting a Dravidians split in near or even far future. So you can keep this idea as a dream situation, not a practical solution.

And Tamils look super OP both on land and water. Pretty cool Castle Age UT though again OP with 50% damage. Should have been just +1 attack like Mayans UT.

@benithisrael

“Wootz Steel” is the regional attack available at blacksmith for both civs in imperial age

Hmm. I indeed ask for new “Regional Tech” mechanism in past 2 years for camel & elephant. As well as “Asymmetric generic tech” for Supplies alternative.

[filtercoffee488]

@SMUM15236

I respect our disagreement. But you never suggested any to balance water maps TG. Granted that is 1% but it is a tournament situation. As you know devs will give that a priority over ladder any day. Also an UT to give infantry extra attack only against siege is really underwhelming Aztecs UT.

I made a post specifically about water play here. So, the changes I’ll propose will be assuming that these are implemented too.

I have 2 ideas. First, give the persian dock speed boost to dravidians, after persian change. Persians aren’t a naval civ anyway, and that dock bonus was out of place to begin with.

OR, Give ships +1/+2 ship armour in castle/imperial age as a bonus. This will give them something in castle age to work with. Thirisidai will need a bit of change to keep it the same.

In either case, remove the siege bonus and add infantry or skirm bonus damage against siege as team bonus. Infantry might be better balanced, and I prefer that vastly over the other.

Also, I really like the changes you proposed to the UT. Just doubling down on the militia line is the way to go imo. The infantry siege attack bonus will also help urumis a bit. Also, urumis should get 1 pierce armour imo, especially when every other infantry UU got one.

@_Dustyacer1

but its not. in teamgames, about half of dravidian games are on water map. for total team games maps, nomad itself is just a 13% play rate, which is barely behind arabia’s 17% playrate.

I said of all maps, that means grouping team, 1v1, and EW games together. THIS tells me that in 1v1s, the number is like 5%. THIS tells me that the team number is like 15%.
Doing a bit of very rough math based on ratios will tell you that the number of hybrid+water maps is 10% of all games. Higher than I expected, but not that big by any margin. Also, most of this is just nomad. Without nomad, this would actually be closer to the 1% I initially said.

@_Dustyacer1

i meant problem with their design and whats holding them back from a buff.

Again, true, but also true in general.

[benithisrael]

@SMUM15236

Well, first of all we are not getting a Dravidians split in near or even far future. So you can keep this idea as a dream situation, not a practical solution.

Its quite practical when you notice that the Indian demographics with the most computer savvy populace and highest disposable incomes live in the deccan region of India. There are 5 major distinct linguistic variations such as Tamil, Telugu, Marati, Kannada and Malayalam. They are represented by an umbrella civ as Dravidians. If you want to gauge the potential of individual demographic, the best way to penetrate that market would be to first create a civ with the target identity. “Tamils as a civ” in the next release makes for a far better sell for the next expansion. As a pilot effort, it would require the least amount of development work as well.

Here is how the Tamil civ schema could look like:

Tamils: [Defensive and Naval civ]

• Age up needs 25% less food
• All unit production buildings are 20% cheaper [TC, castle and other military except docks]
• Research and Economy buildings including docks, farms and fish traps are built, repaired 50% faster
• Blacksmith and University upgrades for Galley line 50% cheaper.
• Units and buildings take -50% bonus damage from Siege weapons

Team bonus: Docks provide +5 pop space

Castle Unique unit: Monk type with conversion range of 11 and 100% faster conversion. Elite upgrade gives redemption, +2 range and 100% faster faith regaining. It does carry relics unlike missionary.
Siege Unique unit: Flame thrower at 10:33 min

Unique techs:
Castle age - Bhakthi movement - Monasteries are upgraded to temples which work 200% faster. They produce the same amount of stone as relic gold.
Imperial age - Poombuhar shipyards - Galley line and Elephant archers fire a second projectile that does half the damage

Weakness - NO Knight, No bombard cannon, No redemption in castle age, and no fervor. Basically, the regular monks are useless. However the special monk unit has amazing range. But no speed.

The age up bonus is thematical and suits the civ. Tamil like Chinese and Egyptian hieroglyphics was one among a handful of very few, very old written languages with a historical and geopolitical context. The Dravidian civ based on Tamils is testament to that fact. So an Age up bonus is thematically correct. The new tamil civ bonuses will be based on Tamilakam (the Abode of the Tamils) or Tamil country. Tamil country under the three tamil dynasties the Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas had been an unconquerable fortress to invasions from the north throughout the middle ages till 13th century. The familial rule was handed down father to son and continued unbroken for more than a thousand years with Pandyas being the oldest and most successful lasting 1600 years. These three dynasties and the pallavas had a building spree that was unmatched by any other part of India.

Their weakness were relying on imported war horses and not innovating on cannons. However their amazing economy supported this. But ironically it was family squabbles which led to their downfall. Once their traditional capitals like Madurai fell to the Delhi sultans, it marked the beginning of the end of Tamil dominance of the peninsula.

The +200 wood bonus and dock bonus for pop space have been split to avoid a stack-up. In my opinion, a Sinhalese civ will be the apt one to get the +200 wood bonus. But the digital economy in sri lanka is not setup for a take-off in online role-playing RTS games and streaming.

[Pulikesi25]

@benithisrael

All eco techs are researched instantly

Now it becomes a natural duplicate of Vietnamese. The eco lead can be given in many other ways. “drop-off” bonuses on one or more forms of food gathering (not fishermen or fishing ship). “trickle” of food from lumberjacks or gold miners. Or military producing wood while fighting - either infantry or skirmishers.

@benithisrael

Units and buildings take -50% bonus damage from Siege weapons

This is a great bonus perfectly addressing Dravidian weakness and naturally giving them the advantage in mangonel fights.

@benithisrael

Unique tech: [Replace ‘medical corps’ with “STRIKE CORPS” - Effect of Barracks technologies is doubled

Not a fan of this in general but since you’ve recommended the rework of wootz steel below, I’d say this is good.

@benithisrael

[Replace woots Steel with ‘damboli’] - In addition to arrows, Castles and TCs fire a ‘Trebuchet’ like volley at same range of Trebuchets

That’s too much. Should be something else siege or ranged units related.

@benithisrael

Tamils: [Foot soldiers and Naval civ]

• Age up needs 25% less food
• All unit production buildings are 20% cheaper [TC, castle and other military except docks]
• Blacksmith and University upgrades for Galley line 50% cheaper.
• Barracks, Archey range and monasteries work 25% faster
• Siege costs -33% wood

Team bonus: Docks provide +5 pop space

Unique unit: Monk type with LOS and conversion range of 12
Unique unit: Flame thrower at 10:33 min

Unique techs:
Castle age - Bhakthi movement - Monasteries are upgraded to temples which work 200% faster and produce half-priced monks
Imperial age - Poombuhar shipyards - Galley line and Elephant archers fire a second projectile that does half the damage

A big no. This is an extremely imbalanced civ. -25% food, cheaper buildings, working faster, cheaper attack and range on archers is just 4 bonuses lined up for the first 12-15 mins which is broken on open maps. Unique tech and unique unit suggests a good monk tech tree and if they have block printing, makes their uu broken on closed maps as well. And in case they don’t get block printing, its just a gimmick unit made for the sake of it. Even if we assume the flame thrower is well balanced statswise, this civ has several fundamental issues. When people in the thread suggested one or more of these changes to Dravidians, its taking into consideration the monastery handicap, mobility handicap, mediocrity of their early game and the lack of a good uu. But its not good to resolve some of that handicap and give all the bonuses and create that as a new civ.

[benithisrael]

@Pulikesi25

This is a great bonus perfectly addressing Dravidian weakness and naturally giving them the advantage in mangonel fights.

Yes, thats the point I’m trying to make with the wood discount. A soft counter like wood discount on mangonels will work when you are a micro-god like mbl. But at 1200 elo especially for Dravidians need more micro than cavalry civs. Its not a workable solution.

@Pulikesi25

That’s too much. Should be something else siege or ranged units related.

“Damboli” is essentially a name for “Catapult”. It was made as a defensive weapon by Vijayanagara empire put on top of castle and fort for defense. It’ll help Dravidian castles defend themselves in a treb wars without mobility. The LOS advantage of treb advantage also helps. Lot of time I lose from position of strenth because the opponent can take out my trebs with hussar in a surprise raid and immediately do a treb down of my castle. I chose trebs over mangonels to avoid friendly fire. It has ballistics accuracy, that should be enough to be useful to hold its ground against siege. A single (TC + castle) combo will have a lot of staying power. It’ll help the Dravidian player deal with surprise raids and siege follow ups.

@Pulikesi25

This is an extremely imbalanced civ. -25% food, cheaper buildings, working faster, cheaper attack and range on archers is just 4 bonuses lined up for the first 12-15 mins which is broken on open maps.

Yup! I noticed that. The civ seems over-powering. But it is supposed to have the power spike that Dravidians have in early feudal. I reworked the civ into a “Defensive and Naval civ”. I removed the barracks and archery range bonus. The monastry bonus will come from the Unique tech in castle age. For detailed explanation, you can read the full explanation. You can see it in the above post. The special unit monk idea is to be a direct Knight and light cav counter. But not for Siege in castle age. I can tweak the dravidan civ and Tamil civ again by exchanging and toning down some bonuses.

Tamils: [Defensive and Naval civ]

• Age up and other TC techs need 20% less food
• All unit production buildings are 20% cheaper [TC, castle and other military except docks]
• Research and Economy buildings including docks, farms and fish traps are built, repaired 50% faster
• Blacksmith and University upgrades for Galley line 50% cheaper.
• Siege costs -33% wood

Team bonus: Docks provide +5 pop space

Castle Unique unit: Monk type with conversion range of 12 and 100% faster conversion. Elite upgrade gives +1 range and 100% faster faith regaining. It does carry relics unlike missionary.
Siege Unique unit: Flame thrower at 10:33 min

Unique techs:
Castle age - Bhakthi movement - Monasteries are upgraded to temples which work 200% faster. They produce half the amount of stone as relic gold.
Imperial age - Poombuhar shipyards - Galley line and Elephant archers fire a second projectile that does half the damage

Weakness - NO Knight, No bombard cannon and no fervor. No block printing for balance. Basically, the regular monks are useless and monastries are only for researching monk related techs for the special monks. However the special monk unit has amazing range and redemption as well added to tech tree. But no speed.

Dravidians:

• 200 wood on age up
• All eco techs are researched instantly [except market]
• Barraacks technologies -50% cheaper
• Skirmishers and elephant archers fire +25 faster
• Units and buildings take -50% bonus damage from Siege weapons
  [Historically too before Deccan sutanates began to develop innovative cannons; Cavalry and infantry determined battles; Vijayanagara empire defeated the sultanates despite the cannons; this siege bonus fits that time-line.]

Team Bonus: Fishermen and Fishing ships carry +5

Unique unit : Urumi and Tirisadai

Unique tech: [Replace ‘medical corps’ with “STRIKE CORPS” - Effect of Barracks technologies is doubled
[Replace woots Steel with ‘Damboli’] - In addition to arrows, Castles and TCs fire a ‘Trebuchet’ like volley at same range of Trebuchets

Both civs get fully upgraded hussars sans husbandry and final armour in blacksmith.
“Wootz Steel” is the regional attack available at blacksmith for both civs in imperial age
Both lose gambersons and final archer armour; this change is to imply that tropical civs did not armor heavily

[Pulikesi25]

@benithisrael

“Damboli” is essentially a name for “Catapult”. It was made as a defensive weapon by Vijayanagara empire put on top of castle and fort for defense. It’ll help Dravidian castles defend themselves in a treb wars without mobility. The LOS advantage of treb advantage also helps. Lot of time I lose from position of strenth because the opponent can take out my trebs with hussar in a surprise raid and immediately do a treb down of my castle. I chose trebs over mangonels to avoid friendly fire. It has ballistics accuracy, that should be enough to be useful to hold its ground against siege. A single (TC + castle) combo will have a lot of staying power. It’ll help the Dravidian player deal with surprise raids and siege follow ups.

It won’t just “help”, you can take out castles with your own castles even without producing trebs. That’s a conceptual flaw. Units and buildings take -50% from siege weapons should be good enough to tilt the balance. The Dravidian player trebs would take lesser damage from enemy trebs, would kill enemy castles faster and same goes for their canons. So the distractive hussar raids would be the only option to kill the Dravidian player’s siege. If historically Dravidians had benefits for their castle, it should be some other bonus. Like they have extra range or they do more damage to cavalry or something like that. Not something extreme like firing a trebuchet volley.

@benithisrael

Weakness - NO Knight, No bombard cannon and no fervor. No block printing for balance. Basically, the regular monks are useless and monastries are only for researching monk related techs for the special monks. However the special monk unit has amazing range and redemption as well added to tech tree. But no speed.

This type of civ which lacks important units and upgrades is just a nightmare to play and balance. Having two of them is already quite bad, no reason to add more of these. The net Dravidian civ should be some mix (not all but some) of these two set of bonuses in such a way that they don’t get overpowered in the early or late game while they can stay ahead and be prepared for the cavalry raids.

[benithisrael]

@Pulikesi25

Dravidian player trebs would take lesser damage from enemy trebs

I don’t think any civ Trebs can do bonus damage to other trebs. So I don’t think treb wars are a problem to balance.

@Pulikesi25

If historically Dravidians had benefits for their castle, it should be some other bonus. Like they have extra range or they do more damage to cavalry or something like that. Not something extreme like firing a trebuchet volley.

The tech can be modified as “Damboli fires a mangonel volley” at the range of TC fire. It could have the 40 base damage of mangonel fire without friendly damage. It should do the job of protective cover against raiding units like hussar and knights. The win condition for dravidians in late game could be to protect the most vitals ares of the economy from hussar raids using “Damboli TCs” and make a single concerted push. Though it can be evaded with a bit of micro, the effort to micro itself turns it into an initiative for the Dravidians. It would no doubt help against the buffed rams in recent patch. The Dravidians have no good raiding unit problem can also be addressed to an extent by becoming hard to raid themselves.

@Pulikesi25

This type of civ which lacks important units and upgrades is just a nightmare to play and balance. Having two of them is already quite bad, no reason to add more of these.

I agree with the premise. But Devs have already set the cat among pigeons by persisting with their bone headed idea of not giving knights. Now, they need to double down and make them viable. Bengalis already seem to have found a place in Arena meta and melee ratha bonus damage from skirms has been fixed in recent patch. So no need to touch them. The devs can make Dravidians and Tamils viable with the right changes.

Make no mistake Dravidian units are getting nerfed directly and indirectly as time goes on. Armored elephants are now weaker than Rams as well as cost a penal amount of resources. The devs could not match Armoured elephant, battle elephant, ele archers and war elephant speeds to be the same value. But they are doing multiple balance changes because so many civs have these units. With multiple civs not having Knights, Devs will have to bear the effort to balance them. Currently Dravidian is a one-off and has been brushed aside. For example, “Medical corps” has been panned since inception, yet they persist with it.

Nubians, Sinhalese, Swahili could be AOE2 civs in future without Knights

[benithisrael]

@vigunsta

And not to mention the techs they miss - Husbandry and Bloodlines.

To be fair, if they removed “Medical Corps” and added Bloodlines, that in itself would fix the unviability problem of Dravidian light cav. Then If you addin a tech like “Damboli” in place of Medical Corps, you won’t have a thread spanning 100 posts about Dravidians having no raiding unit.

In the eco dept, the fishing carry capacity bonus can be made more meaningful, if the devs modified it to “+15 for fishing ships and +5 for Fishermen, Foragers and Farmers”. But Since that is not getting done, I hope they just split the civ. If AOE2 wants to reach a particular demographic, that would be the next step to take in the expansion of AOE2.

An amazing and very unique team bonus for Dravidians could have been “Woots steel” available in blacksmith for only infantry. South Indian woots steel was sold world over as “Damascus steel” and other names. This would have been an amazing play to buff infantry in general. As a side note, this problem of Docks bonus encouraging abuse and being better than Vikings would not be there. I can’t see why the devs never made any innovative designs as part of this civ. Yet claim this is designed as a no knight civ.

[Pulikesi25]

@benithisrael

I don’t think any civ Trebs can do bonus damage to other trebs.

oh, for some reason I misunderstood your original bonus as -50% damage from siege weapons instead of bonus damage. Even then your castles will go down slower compared to opponent’s, trebs will die slower to canons, infantry units will die but I’d say if it was units and buildings took -30% damage (not just bonus) that would be a better bonus and sufficient by itself.

@benithisrael

The tech can be modified as “Damboli fires a mangonel volley” at the range of TC fire. It could have the 40 base damage of mangonel fire without friendly damage. It should do the job of protective cover against raiding units like hussar and knights. The win condition for dravidians in late game could be to protect the most vitals ares of the economy from hussar raids using “Damboli TCs” and make a single concerted push. Though it can be evaded with a bit of micro, the effort to micro itself turns it into an initiative for the Dravidians. It would no doubt help against the buffed rams in recent patch. The Dravidians have no good raiding unit problem can also be addressed to an extent by becoming hard to raid themselves.

The mangonel volley and stuff is good against just rams which it shouldn’t be. How will anyone push Dravidian buildings. Cavalry will avoid it without any problems and the weakness against raids will stay as it is. Its just very simple to give an additional +3 or +4 attack for defensive structures against cavalry. It would do nothing against rams and siege but solve the late game raiding problem.

And this is assuming eco doesn’t get any buffs. If long term eco gets a buff, they wouldn’t need that either.

@benithisrael

I agree with the premise. But Devs have already set the cat among pigeons by persisting with their bone headed idea of not giving knights. Now, they need to double down and make them viable. Bengalis already seem to have found a place in Arena meta and melee ratha bonus damage from skirms has been fixed in recent patch. So no need to touch them. The devs can make Dravidians and Tamils viable with the right changes.

Melee Rathas were getting nerfed (I think that change might not go through though) - they were losing the +2 against skirms. They’re still going to remain weaker to skirms in melee mode. Yes its awful that devs decided to add 2 civs without knights or replacement units. Why are you suggesting the addition of a 3rd civ that DOES NOT exist in the game today? That civ is not needed. Maybe one or two of those bonuses could be swapped, or amended with some moderation but absolutely terrible idea to add another terrible civ like that.

@benithisrael

Nubians, Sinhalese, Swahili could be AOE2 civs in future without Knights

I think I’ve seen Nubians as a civ suggestion in a different thread from a long time ago and it did seem to have knights. Anyways its ok to not have knights if those civs get some combination of bonus on camels, very good archer line, good unique/regional units and significantly above average economy like meso, Gurjaras and old Hindustanis. But the civs you’ve mentioned don’t have those. No knights, no camels, no CA, average eco with just power spikes, terrible cavalry, terrible monks, no bonus to benefit the siege after its produced, no bonus on archer line. The bonuses that you took from a previous message and created as a new civ tried to address some of those - super fast up time, super early f letching, bonus for being aggressive with the military to make sure they can end the game or get much far ahead before the weaknesses start showing up. That’s one way to make them usable. Another way is new building for boosting mobility or making infantry more usable. Third way is giving long lasting eco benefit. Fourth way would be to rework the game such that infantry are almost as useful as cavalry and ranged.
But keeping that civ almost the same way as they are right now with just a minor bonus and taking all those bonuses meant to fix this civ to put them into a new garbage civ is a terrible idea.