Dravidians New Bonus for Preventing Raiding

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Again, I’d suggest you go out and actually play with them for a bit. In realistic scenarios, you’re getting the majority of your damage from the charge/splash damage. Go try chasing down archers, for example; the closest unit dies, generally, after getting off a single attack. If that attack did 9-12 damage, it’s completely worthless. It’s only because it does 20-30 damage and splashes across multiple targets that it has any value whatsoever.

Honestly, the fact that you’d even suggest getting rid of what is objectively the only redeeming feature of the urumi, in exchange for two things that would be absolutely useless for them, indicates to me that you’ve never actually used them at all.

I mean, really? Comparing it to a Petard?

Honestly. Virtual headshaking.

Realistically, I still think the best way is having more healing, so they’ll be topped up when they’re needed. Healing keeps infantry relevant but has little impact in combat.

Edit: yeah, the more I think about it, the obvious choice is to give medical core a healing radius around elephants. That’s synergizes with basically every single one of their options, whether that be supporting archers with elephant archers, supporting elephant archers with infantry, or supporting their unique unit with armored elephants. And at the same time, it doesn’t have any negative impacts on water Maps. I’m thinking something like 1/3 the healing rate on all units within a few tiles of any elephant. Plus, that makes it a far more valid investment in early Castle age, when you might only have one or two elephant units on the field, but you still have a significant body of feudal units remaining, but weakened.

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Bengalis are not a timing attack civ which is what free cav armor helps with. They are meant to get stronger over time and win in Imp. Removing bloodlines weakens their max potential. This ruins the identity of Bengalis. Also, I am not sure if is relevant in the relic wars as there is usually not enough resources to get BL and armor. So, they would still be OP with this change.

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I understand your concern. But its unwarranted. I’ll explain below.

Well, then Portuguese should not have got the berry bonus. They has a formidable imperial age with Fetorias and gold discounted units. But that did not stop devs from including a early game wood bonus. So a scout rush early in the game with free armor is a good bonus gameplay wise.

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Bengalis get a 2 vill lead over a plain vanila civ after reaching feudal age. 44/45 of civs get better bonuses at this stage. Please see the flat line below 20 mins thats a dead beat civ. A early military bonus in the form of scout rush is good for the civ.
Bengalis are supposed to be an elephant and monk civ. Elephants don’t need bloodlines as much as they need Husbandry. Bloodlines only encourages hussar\light cav spam in late game. Bengalis don’t even have hussar. Bloodlines is not going to give them any win conditions late game. So they don’t have any identity associated with horse based cavalry. Bloodlines only helps ‘Ratha’. But just improving the base HP of ‘Ratha’ by 20 points will help their identity better. It also gives them a powerful unit in castle age in fend off Knights and cross-bows even without thumb-ring. So small improvements across the board for the civ rather than a boom till imp civ.

I don’t completely agree. Lets say the assessment is correct. the win condition are clearly established with this bonus. Bengalis will try to steal relics fast by doing FC without BL. Opponent can expect this and do armor upgrade and BL for their scouts or spam spears as a priority. It makes things interesting on Arena.

Nobody uses Urumi in games. Its a useless unique unit. You are using them as petards basically in all your scenario testing. Its easy to build Urumis in scenarios. You don’t get 20 Urumis at one go in games in castle age. Newsflash, you need castles to train them in real games.

You got to elaborate more. Typical infantry are use and throw units. You can’t heal them like cavalry + monk combo. 20 hp\min for beserkers was not enough. 40 hp\min is not enough. What makes you think Urumi accompanied by a slow moving elephant will be any better? It may take one more skirm to one-shot a Urumi. Then they can one-shoot the EA. Both moving together at 0.9 tps.
I’m very excited to see you suggest a speed buff for Dravidian elephants like you suggested for Bulgarians in the other thread and got roasted.

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Enemy units suffer attrition in a 16 tile radius from Dravidian TCs like losing attack or hp.

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I use scenario editor testing because games are chaotic and have too many factors to make meaningful statements. I also use them in real games, when they’re suitable to the situation. Which, admittedly, is rare, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Again, if you’re going to suggest completely reworking a unit, your idea isn’t gonna get used, and it’s not even worth typing. Try to come up with something that retains their identity AND makes them more viable.

Sure thing!

Infantry aren’t a use and throw unit - though they might feel like it. Their biggest weakness is the fact they lose such a large portion of their health in a single fight that it FEELS like they’re a use and throw unit, but they’re not. In reality, they benefit more than cavalry from healing, because it takes less healing to get them back up over that critical threshold of usefulness. Infantry walk that line very carefully; archers have too little health for healing to make much difference, while cavalry have so much health, they remain effective even with a small percentage of their hp left. Infantry alone are right on the line where healing them up takes them just across that line.

The problem is, infantry are ineffective at defending against light cavalry raids, so healing with monks is out, and they’re slow, so moving back to a castle to heal is challenging. If they could be healed, even more slowly, by a more durable unit they can actually defend, it would be a really good synergy.

Healing on berserks and even woad raiders is actually incredibly effective, in the correct circumstances. I’ve seen and played many cases where Woad Raiders can constantly win as long as they’re topped up by a nearby castle, but lose as soon as they move away from it. It’s just not going to make them counter their hard counters, like archers or hand cannons. For everything else, it’s extremely potent.

Now, where the healing would help with Elephant Archers would be combined with the militia line. Skirms deal 6x the damage to an elephant archer compared to a longsword. By giving longswords even a tiny bit of healing, like 10/minute, they’d be able to counter skirmishers exponentially more effectively, and in doing so, protect the elephant archers.

Urumis would be more likely to be paired with armored elephants, where skirmishers would be less likely to be seen and pikemen would instead be used. The objective in this case would not be to absorb the damage entirely, but rather to undo chance hits, as the armored elephants would be able to soak up any amount of ranged fire, while the urumis would only be needed to swoop in and defend against melee attackers.

This would be a careful buff, but it’s not meant to be added alone; it should be added in tandem with an early defensive buff that helps them get through early castle age alive in the first place.

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  1. You are comparing the Portuguese eco bonus to your suggestion of a military bonus for Bengalis. They don’t work the same way. Portuguese got that bonus to keep pace with faster civs and defend till Castle. They could be aggressive and try to kill vills, but they could also boom behind walls and still benefit from the bonus. Free cav armor only helps if you take fights, so there is a lot of incentive to be aggressive.
  2. Recently, devs have made a few buffs that I don’t agree with. Many pros and I think Portuguese are too strong (they are high or top tier on all maps) since they got that bonus and have called for nerfs of some kind. Ornlu made a video about it. Let’s wait and see what they do with it.

Except they are designed to be a ‘boom till imp’ civ and are top tier on Arena and get picked frequently in tournaments for closed maps. Bengalis don’t need changes to their tech tree. They already have 12th highest win rate on Arena at 1200+.

As a strong Imp civ, they don’t need further nerfs to their late game tech tree. They need BL to snipe trebs and maybe raid and kill BBCs that outrange monks.

Bengalis could scout this and build a castle and make Rathas. Also, spears just get converted and scouts + BL + armor still die to LC with +2 armor.

Getting back to Dravidians, free cav armor and Mahouts fits their playstyle and would help when they need it without taking away their identity of ‘worst stable in the game’. You could give them last cav armor in addition to the above, but I don’t think they need it.

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The elephant UT is needed in my opinion. They still lack the last armor even after they get the Husbandry and elite upgrade (and the regeneration ≈ Bloodlines), so they will still be useless until they have an UT. I want their melee elephant can be an option based on their history. If possible, I’d like to swap Battle elehpants between the Dravidians and the Vietnamese. The Dravidians had best heavy armoured elephant army, while the Vietnamese’s warfare using elephants was not outstanding.

No problem with swapping the UTs. I just wonder what is they also need in the Castle age. If they need something going to play the role that Knights play for other civs, the Urumi rework to make it able to dodge projectiles should do that. How about let the siege discount become the new Castle age UT?

Yeah. Wootz steel also make compromising the uniqueness of Leitis.

Exactly.

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And Dravidians is not doing good in HC_V which is totally expected. I’m actually surprised why they have been picked outside of Islands. I know HC tournaments are full with hybrid maps where they are decent. But in tournaments you must pick the best one and there are at least 10 civs better than Dravidians in hybrid maps.

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Yup! But in terms of civ design. Giving a tropical region an amour bonus is just silly. That’s true for Bengalis and Malay as well. Though I agree, this bonus along with last amour will he greate for Dravidians gameplay with light cav and Elephant archers. There are easier ways like how bulgarians are designed with Militia line free + cheaper blacksmith upgrades. I think Dravidians could get 50% cheaper attack upgrades at the Blacksmith. As a civ that made ‘wootz steel’ historically, they should get some bonus from blacksmith for the attack upgrades. They will get forging, iron casting, Blast furnace, fletching, bodkin arrow and Bracer 50% cheaper. This will also mean the timing of the attack can be earlier than other civs. M@A can sustain more time. Skirms can also quickly get +1 over other civ skirms. The current 25% faster is frankly not enough for a low DPS unit like skirms.

Barracks technologies and blacksmith attack upgrades cost -50%.

I’ll just requote something I wrote an year back.

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I think that’s the reason why they get picked. Bo7 and 5 bans per player. If there are 3-4 hybrid maps in the map draft, each player is forced to go for some 10+ ranked civ on some of them.

I think the barrack tech discount should change into military upgrades are 33% cheaper. Apart from smith techs it will also make crossbow, elite skirm and ballistics cheaper.

This could also be changed into something like skirmishers and elephant archers get double benefit from f letching and bodkin or bodkin and bracer.

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I don’t understand why it’s silly. AEs have lots of armor, but still only available to tropical civs.

Bulgarians should not be power crept any more than they already are. They are picked in tournaments even less frequently than Dravidians and have mediocre win rate on land maps. Dravidians already have a UT to signify this historical achievement, so they don’t need more.

The problem is this is more effective when there is less micro, i.e., late game and Dravidians need help getting there. Which is what free cav armor helps with.

Double fletching is too strong and giving skirms extra attack lets them kill vills and scouts efficiently, which is not their purpose. Dravidians were given FU arbs for that purpose. I think the skirm-EA bonus could be replaced by extra range in Castle and Imp, like Britons. However, I also think the devs are committed to this ‘Ethiopian-like’ design for Dravidian skirms and EAs so they are least likely to change it.

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What if it were buffed to “Fire +25% faster and do +2 damage to monks”?

That way, they’ll kill monks in 3 or 5 shots in castle age, or 3 or 4 shots in imperial.

That would help early elephant usage vs monks and make them more viable to counter knights.

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Very heavy armor was a Europeon invention and it suited the climate here. Tropical climate is hot and humid. Any human or horse will suffer heat exhausion and eventually a heat stroke if plate barding amour is worn during battles lasting dawn to dusk. That is also one of the reasons the crusades failed. yet muslims could not push far north of Europe. Armored elephants were introduced in dynasties of India because the region did not have a practice of employing Rams or a lot of other Siege weapons the Europeans did. The same in fact applies to South east Asia and Japan to an extent. In India, Elephants were employed flexibly for a lot of purposes in war. They hauled most weapons, supplies to the battle field and left with war-booty. So they changed the skin of Rams, changed some stats, cost and presented it as a regional unit. They chose armour graphics because it looked cool compared to current battle elephant. Just because it has armored in the name does not mean it has armour. In fact, it has -3 melee armour, it should have probably been named “Battering elephant” and “Siege elephant” for the upgrade. By that logic, Battering Rams should be named “180 Pierce armored ram”.

Dravidians get picked in tournaments due to water maps and other civs not having water bonuses. In aggressive land maps and hybrid land maps, Bulgarians are preferred over Dravidians. Bulgarians lack dark age bonuses. That is the reason they don’t do well early in the game. Dravidians share this same weakness. Militia line is pretty much useless. So Bulgarians despite getting militia-line upgrades for free, they don’t play them. In imp, they get +5 melee armour for only champions in imp. If Bulgarians can’t use 2 of their bonuses and one of their unique techs, they are bound to be bad compared to other civs whether they are powercrept or not. If they got +5 for Konnik as well, then it makes sense. If Bulgarians have been power crept, then they need a re-work.
I would probably just give them a new bonus:
Barracks cost 75 wood
Then they can build barrack and rush faster than Dravidians. They get effectively full 50% discount for blacksmith techs in feudal age for their infantry and cavalry. That should allow them to continue their aggression with scouts better than most civs including Dravidians. In castle age, they can transition to ‘krepost’ and ‘Konnik’ combo. Dravidians don’t have any sort of such special buildings or a sturdy unit like the Konnik. So they do need better bonus and discounts than Bulgarians. Both civs having infantry and blacksmith focus means that they would need bonuses to play similarly. It is not a matter of one civ power-creeping the other. Dravidians in the blacksmith bonus that I suggested get a less effective version than Bulgarians do especially in the feudal age.

I don’t think such an all encompassing bonus will be implemented as a civ bonus. It is easier to just implement a eco bonus and research the techs at full price.

This is probably a better version than the 25% faster firing version. But I doubt even the Blacksmith discount will be implemented let alone a double version especially for the elephant archers whose range was reduced to make them vulnerable to skirms similar to cav archers.

I think Dravidians can become viable with just a couple of changes like Incas with a major economic bonus and tweaking the other major economic bonus.
My first tweak will be the one below:

This bonus can carry Dravidians beyond the feudal age without special buildings or viable unique units.
The next tweak would be the new bonus to replace Siege wood discout:

Remove ‘Siege 33% wood discount’
New Bonus - “Villagers within LOS of towncenters work 10% faster”

This removal of Siege discount will make sure that the infantry identity is preserved. The faster working villagers make sure Dravidians players have an advantage economically from the dark age. With the economy advantage, Dravidian player can overcome the lack of strong units and tech tree options. It specifically makes up for the loss of late game mining techs and two-man saw can be removed if needed for balance. Then Dravidians will have the unique distinction as a civ that lacks all late game techs. This is how the design should have been in the first place similar to how Vikings and Malay economy are designed.

The below change is optional. This is a personal preference of mine.

Remove - ‘Medical Corps’
New tech - “Kaikola Corps” Elephants and Castle units move +20% faster.
Cost 300 food and 300 gold.

Trebs are not affected by mongol ‘Drill’ tech. The new tech can give special trebs for Dravidians without stepping on the treb bonuses of other civs. This tech could be extremely useful for Dravidians in treb wars since they don’t get siege engineers. They need to push faster and earlier than most civs. A unique tech in castle age which can improve them will be extremely useful. They will have the same speed as Arbs @ 0.96 tps. Elephants getting a speed boost will maintain the current characteristic of castle age unique tech favoring elephants as well as make up for Dravidians missing husbandry without adding ‘mahuts’ for all elephant civs. Dravidians lack of husbandry has made their elephants useless. This 20% speed boost will make their battle elephants the second fastest just below Khmer making up for their low health and armour. The elephant archer the fastest elephant in the game boosting their survivability against skirms similar to cav archers. Urumi too will benefit with a speed boost to max 1.386 tps becoming possible counter-raiders against hussars and other spamable cavs as a defensive unit.

In order to make Vills resistant to raids, the economy bonus of 10% workrate is enough. If needed, we can have ‘woots steel’ affect Villagers as well. ‘Woots Vills’ could be a good change which makes the civ interesting again.

Woots steel → All melee attacks from infantry, cavalry and Villagers ignore armor

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Congratulations; you’ve successfully turned a slow, fast eco civ, into a fast, slow eco civ.

Again, if you start your suggestion by completely changing the civ, it’s never gonna happen, and you’re just wasting time even bothering to write it.

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I’ve made the civ viable to play; slow, fast or otherwise.

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You’ve made a completely different civ.

Again, try fixing the civ we’ve got, NOT making a new one.

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Yeah, I forgot there are so many bans.

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A bonus I had suggested for Dravidians has formed the core of Armenian eco bonus and balance. Look at this post from long before ‘Mountain royals’ was released.

The devs tried to be cute and reduced the value to 25% for mule cart technologies for Armenians. The effect was too small to have any practical use. With update 99311, they had to increase it to 40% and remove two-man saw just like I had suggested.

The Dravidians wood bonus is poorly designed. It is only useful in feudal age when wood is important. In castle and imperial age, it just adds to the stockpile or is not even enough to build a new town-center. The best replacement suggestions for that bonus I have seen are:

and

either of the above bonus can be paired with the Towncenter workrate area effect bonus.

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I think a better approach would be to make the fishing bonus more consistent. On maps where they can use it to safely get an advantage going into Feudal, they seem to do just fine. Again, 50%+ winrates on Arena, even better on water maps.

So what we can learn from this is, Dravidians do fine if they can either use their fishing bonus OR have walls to keep them alive for long enough to take advantage of their wood bonus and other strengths.

It’s just that Arabia happens to have neither of these things.

So the logical response is to either expand the fishing bonus to something usable on Arabia, OR to add some sort of walling bonus to emulate Arena somehow. Or both. Based on what we know from non-arabia maps, this should more or less perfectly fix them.

Notably, while also preserving basically 100% of their existing theme.

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I suspect players would easily find ways to counter it. I remember when players in AoE4 found early MAAs OP, but they found ways to handle it soon enough. Such would be the case here (even if the games are rather different). And the techs still cost resources, even if they are discounted. To get the full +2 PA, Dravidians would have to pay more than the Romans do for their armor bonus (and I believe Romans have a stronger eco than Dravidians do at this point of the game). And Goths already have a Feudal MAA rush with an improved, free version of supplies and a free reduced version of Arson (and Goths likewise have a stronger - or at least more directly helpful - early game eco bonus with longer lasting hunts). And while both strategies are sometimes seen, neither are particularly OP. Early access to general infantry barracks techs would allow Dravidians an effective combination of the Roman/Goth MAA rush, but Dravidians would still have to invest more than either of those civs to get the full benefit (by which point their opponent has had plenty of time to come up with an answer)

Some potential counter-strategies.

  • Archers can still hit and run (they deal less damage and won’t have a speed advantage, but still work fine and can run back under TC’s shelter or behind walls - works particularly well with a large archer mass).
  • Melee units (both scouts and militia-line) can still compete as normal (+1 PA doesn’t matter to them; nor does extra movement speed matter much within an engagement, though it does once a retreat is made; and they don’t take extra damage due to Arson). Some civs have better melee options in Feudal than Dravidians have.
  • Counterattack: even with squires, MAAs and spears would have a hard time catching up to scouts.
  • Aging up (expensive, but if you can do it, you get extra options that have no trouble dealing with MAAs)
  • Combination of the previous strategies (ex: archers supporting scouts who can pick their fights or counter-raid)

All strategies have pros and cons. Different civilizations will prefer different strategies, and will likely choose based on their bonuses. A 2-barracks MAA rush still takes a good amount of investment, and the investment needed to counter these counter-strategies would turn it from a Feudal rush to a Feudal all-in (and not even the strongest one at that).

Honestly, I think it would be more comparable to a combination of Goth MAA rush and Roman MAA rush. But I believe both of those civs have stronger ecos than dravidians at this point of the game, and Dravidians would have to invest more heavily to get the full benefits of their bonuses (including full-price blacksmith and its full-price techs), which in some ways don’t quite match the Goth and Roman bonuses. But it should still be fully viable. Testing is needed to really know the effects of any strategy/bonus, but this should benefit Feudal MAA options and may help future infantry transitions.

TLDR: yes, it is an open invitation to spam MAAs. But it would not be a game-breaking strategy