Urumi sword was a weapon of choice to fight multiple opponents. It was primarily used by skilled martial artists as a self defense weapon. It took years of training on other weapons and only the most proficient were trained on the Urumi steel blades. So AOE2 Urumi unit should be very good at defending themselves. Either they should be heavily armoured or have some kind of shrivamsha shield. The flow movements themselves provided evading tactics to the urumi. In this current version, I’ve made the charge bar a proxy for Urumi self-defence capabilities.
This version is a conservative re-work of the urumi swordsmen stats. The current stats have been maintained as much as possible. The primary changes are @casusincorrabil idea of a higher rate of fire and no armour increase. The previous idea of a proxy self-defense mechanism and @Pulikesi25 idea of a speed boost by 0.1 tps:
Attack rate:
- Rate of fire is increased to 1 effectively doubling damage.
Charge bar works like Srivamsha shield:
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The Charge bar of urumi kinda also works like a Shrivamsha Shield in addition to calculating time for charge attack trigger. The charge bar absorbs damage at the same amount it may deal to the enemy unit.
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Enemy attack on Urumi both melee and Pierce will reduce charge attack bar first before reducing Urumi’s real health bar.
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Only When Charge bar is full, urumi can do charge attack.
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For charge bar to recharge, Urumi should not be attacking. Charge bar pauses immediately when Urumi attack animation starts. It only recharges when moving about, patrolling or standing still in no attack mode and not attacking.
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For Normal Urumi, Charge attack bar also provides health of 12 hit points which is same as charge damage effectively changing health to max 67 when trained and deployed from castle. For Elite urumi, Charge attack bar provides a health of 15 hit points the charge damage as it is currently effectively changing health to 80. The cost have been adjusted accordingly.
Training
Cost : 85 Food 25 Gold [**CHANGE**] Increase food by 20 and Gold 5
Training time : 12 seconds [**CHANGE**] Increase time by +3 sec
Statistics
Hit points : 55, 65 (Elite)
Melee Attack : 8, 10 (Elite) same as now
Attack bonus : +2, +3 (Elite) vs Cavalry [**CHANGE**] (Changed from Eagle)
+1, +2 (Elite) vs Siege [**CHANGE**] (Changed from Building)
Rate of Fire : 1 [**CHANGE**] (Changed from 2) 100% faster
Melee armor : 1
Pierce armor : 0
Armor class : Infantry, Unique unit, Eagle Warrior [**CHANGE**] (Added Eagle Warrior as armour class )
Speed : 1.15 [**CHANGE**] 0.1 Buff
Line of Sight : 3
Ability : Charges its attack by 12 (15 Elite) damage over 24 (20 Elite) seconds and
dealing a blast attack of 50% strength in 0.75 tiles radius.
[**NEW**] The charge bar is also a damage avoiding bar.
[**NEW**] The charge bar recharges only when Urumi is not attacking.
[**NEW**] Once charge attack is made on enemy unit, the bar becomes empty.
Unit evolution : Elite Urumi Swordsman
Upgrade cost : 900 food, 450 gold
Upgrade time : 45 seconds
I’ve made the charge bar a multi-purpose utility of giving the Urumi some damage absorption capabilities.
Urumi get bonus against Cavalry and Siege. This helps players know what units to use the Urumi against.
Urumi get bonus damage against Knights, With the changed rate of fire, the urumi still maintain their soft counter capabilites vs Knights.
Urumi with their high bonus damage vs Siege. They are a hard counter for Dravidian weakness against Siege in castle age.
The zero pierce armour is a problem. But mitigated a little by the extra HP which recharges when not attacking. The calculation comes out to the effect of 1 pierce armour. So the cost increase by 5 gold.
The unit is expensive by 20 food. So its not easy to mass in castle age. But can be a good win condition in imperial age.
The charge attack is not so snowballing since urumi costs and training time has increased.
Dravidians get a truly unique counter to Knights and siege in castle age with this design.
If you see the figures on column J and M, Urumi with charge defeats Knight line. But without charge, column M vs O, urumi gets killed. Urumi will soft counter Knights because of resource difference. They will always win 1vs 1. But lose to cavalier 1 vs 1. Thus a counter in castle age.
Woots urumi or Elite Urumi will eat up cavalier which is logical due to the huge difference in upgrade costs.
Palladin however will overcome Elite urumi with Woots. Thus restoring balance of resources and gameplay.
Urumi and Elite Urumi can take out a mangonel and Onager even if a knight tries to stop urumi. K and P column values which represent number of hits to take out mangonel and onager are always less than number of hits Knight\cavalier will take to Kill Urumi. So they hard counter siege.
With the addition on Eagle warrior armour class, we can see all civs can counter urumi with champion line like Eagles get countered. Eagles will not be of much use 1vs1 or as protection to Siege.
This re-work is based on interaction with @filtercoffee488 @Zelley00 @Ifavorwining @LinedJoker18896 @UnwariestRobin3 @casusincorrabil @UpmostRook9474 @SirWiedreich @Nerathion etc. Please share your feedback on this Urumi 2.0 re-design.