You’ve forgotten the 200 food you start with; that’s what’s making for the difference you’re seeing. The other three sheep are more or less accounted for in the feudal timing. You don’t start feudal age with 8 farms, after all. I think my initial assessment is pretty fair.
The biggest issue with such a bonus is, it doesn’t strike where they actually need it. Multiplicative eco bonuses like this apply most strongly in the late castle age, long after most Dravidians games have already been decided.
Could you make it work? Maybe, but at what cost? If you need to rework the rest of their bonuses just to make this bonus work, it’s probably not a great idea. The new bonus should be made to fit in with the old bonuses, not the other way around.
And that’s assuming it’s even possible. Probably the biggest issue with buffing the Dravidians is their winrates on non-arabia maps. They’re already doing VERY well on maps like islands, arena, and megarandom. A farming bonus like this is always going to be stronger the more closed the map, so to me, it feels like you’re trying to force this bonus to work in a place for which it’s not even ideal.
Whatever bonus they get needs to be tailor-made for arabia, while having minimal impact on other maps. This bonus essentially has the opposite effect, being most useful for closed maps, and least useful for open ones.
Something came into my mind at 3 am before falling asleep. So maybe not a well thought idea.
Since I always want doubling down there Barrack discount bonus just like Burgundians Stable discount, how does villager +5 HP per Barracks tech sound? It is a somewhat defensive bonus against raiding.
What I meant is food from animals is usually 1600. (700 from sheep and 900 from hunt) but even if you ignore deer and say its 270, you can keep the extra wood bonus for feudal age directly or through a different way if you feel this is too small.
My god dude. If you give a civ 1000 extra resources they won’t do the exact same build waiting to die the same way. They can get to next ages faster, pull ahead and “where they actually need” won’t be that phase anymore. Before the first knight they’d probably have 7-8 monks, +25 vills.
That’s not a cost at all. That’s called balance.
How about just as a replacement to siege discount. +200 wood per age and villagers work faster within tc range.
They don’t. Small data anomaly. 1.7% pick rate out of 2k games is 34 games. A bunch of matchups aren’t even covered.
Remember how you opened up a thread three days after balance changes came through and showed up a bunch of stats claiming Dravidians are now good. And how all of it changed once stats scaled up. Small data is just noise, can’t draw conclusions out of them.
They were one of the worst performers in Master of Arena despite the random bans bringing mediocre civs for opponent.
Any map that doesn’t have enough water for navy fight is a bad map for Dravidians. On open maps they lack mobility, eco lead and are vulnerable to raids. On closed maps they miss fervor, husbandry for relic fight, no ranged uu for castle drop uu play, no redemption for clown play, no siege engineers for late game.
Stop trying to find reasons to justify Dravidians are strong when they’re clearly not.
Another approach could be to give Dravidians free cav armor (instead of siege discount) and replace Medical Corps with Mahouts (can be moved to Imp if required).
Free cav armor would support their elephant and aggressive identity and would not be OP in long run but would give them Frank-like scouts in early feudal and LC with +2 armor could be a decent substitute for knights in early castle until the enemy gets armor as well. This would encourage Dravidians to rely on their currently (almost) useless stable more.
Mahouts would make up for lack of stable upgrades - elephants may be less tanky, but they reach their target faster.
If Dravidians are too strong in feudal, their skirm bonus can be moved to Castle Age. I don’t think it would affect them too much as high level micro already negates this to some extent.
Free cavalry armors but missing the last armor is not decend in my opinion.
The reason elephants are difficult to be used until the late game is the cost, not the armor, so even if the armor is free, they probably still won’t be used in the Castle age.
Only Scout Cavalry are buffed, but help pretty less. There is no future in Stables. You cannot switch to Knights, and cannot switch to Battle Elephants or Elephant archers smoothly. So if this comes true, I think the Feudal Scout would only be used when the player want to all in and donesn’t plan to age up.
My two cents about Dravidians.
The Barrack techs discount changed to maybe one of the following.
Supplies and Gambesons provide double the effects. Maybe lose Champion in exchange.
The Barrack techs cost no food. The Squires still takes time for researching.
Recieve Elite Battle Elephant and husbandry.
Rename Medical Corps to Kaikola Corps.
Kaikola Corps changed to turn the gold cost of Battle Elephants into food or wood, and the regeneration of elephants changed to be a civ bonus maybe.
Urumi rework.
The charging bar can also be used to dodge projectiles.
Still deals a blast damage when attacking with fully charged, but does not increase the attack point.
Thirisadais can heal nearby ships.
“The Chola army was mostly composed of Kaikolars—men with strong arms who were royal troops receiving regular payments from the treasury.”
Honestly this one could be done even without replacing. The thing that is holding them back to have tanky and cheap Militia line is not the 50% barracks discount. It is the Wootz Steel UT.
I liked it. Although I’m not sure about full trash BE.
Nah. They are top tier in water. And Thirisadai is also useful in occasion.
I have read a point of view that the Wootz Steel is equivalent to +3 to about +6 attack in most of occasion.
I think if Militias can have double Supplies and Gambesons, they should not be able to be upgraded to Champions with +3 to +6 attack.
The reason I think the discount should be replaced is that they may not need easier access to Pikemen and Halberdiers (the most obvious effect of the discount) when they can have such a strong Militia line since the Castle age.
Part of the cost is absolutely fine.
I think it will be okay if 100% gold cost get turned. If needed, the 100% gold cost can become 120% food/wood cost or even more.
Top tier in water… in the early game. Later, their advantages will become less and less obvious.
Absolutely they don’t need to be strong whole the time, but the Thrisadai is really rare to be used.
I don’t know any occasion that it is useful. It might be very very highly situational.
So without Champion it is still +2 to +5. Very strong. And double effect of supplies is impossible with Wootz Steel. 30 food 20 gold armor ignoring THS with 7 PA. That’s total broken.
Huh? They need this one most. Their main weakness is Knight with some ranged combo (skirms/siege).
In TG it is used as your ally can protect them from fire ships. Maybe the cost can be reduced instead of a new gimmick.
It’s a decent bonus, but honestly, infantry are already quite tanky for most of the game. I feel like a bonus like this wouldn’t really address their big weakness to archer units, so it might not change the way they’re played much. That and, it would lead to even more overlap with Vikings. If they did it I wouldn’t say no, but I’d be more inclined towards a more distinctive solution.
Edit: That IS kind of a neat idea. It would definitely make them more resistant to raiding, but wouldn’t really help them on closed or water maps. Not sure exactly if it would be enough, but I tentatively like it!
Right, but you were asking where the extra 4 villagers came from, since I was calculating collecting just enough food for 14 villagers + age up. You start with 3, get 4 more from your starting food, and then pay 700 more for your other villagers, and 500 for the ageup. Hence, you collect in the ballpark of 120-125 extra food in the dark age.
The rest is accounted for in feudal age, which generally lasts about 10 more minutes. You could definitely go up earlier, but that would reduce the impact of the bonus over that age and actually make it weaker compared to the wood bonus, which allows you to go up with different villager splits/etc, but which provides the same resources no matter how long you spend in a particular age.
It is a cost if you value civ design. If I can call out one flaw in your methodology, it’s in not respecting civ design. IMO, civ design is the most important aspect of balance, and the one which should be preserved most strongly. Otherwise, you end up with a bunch of boring, cookie-cutter civs with minor aesthetic differences at best.
It’s the dedication to maintaining civ design and distinctiveness that has played a large role in making this game as good as it is. More than that, if a suggestion doesn’t match the civ design, the chances of it actually being implemented are low to zero. Honestly, I could leave and just let this thread die without any real fear of the bonus you propose being implemented, but that sacrifices the chance at maybe coming up with a distinctive, civ-fitting bonus that actually does fit their civ design.
By that metric, you can barely judge any civ except for the top few.
IMO, being over 50% WR on Arena, the second most selected map, and being #3 at around 60% winrate on Arena 1900+, is more than enough statistical evidence. And that’s not even a map with fishing!
The proof seems pretty conclusive to me; on maps that are either closed, or have fishing, Dravidians are well balanced, even strong. On open maps without fishing(basically, Arabia, but a few others), Dravidians get rocked hard.
This only reinforces my belief that what Dravidians really need is a walling bonus. Allow them to close up their map more quickly, and they’ll do much better on these open maps without unduly buffing them on Arena or water maps.
That’s a bonus that’s tailor-made to their weaknesses, fits the civ thematically, and won’t unnecessarily strengthen them where it’s not needed.
I like the way you’re thinking, actually. It’s weird at first glance, but it really would help their early elephant play and make scouts much more viable. Neat idea!
Ooh, good call. Sorry about that, my coffee hasn’t quite kicked in yet.
That IS kind of a neat idea. It would definitely make them more resistant to raiding, but wouldn’t really help them on closed or water maps. Not sure exactly if it would be enough, but I tentatively like it!
But also less 10 HP, making it easier to be killed.
Anyway, Wootz Steel cannot make Champion useful in practice since at the point people just spawn Urumi rather than upgrading the Militia line even there are discounts. Double the Supplies and Gambesons should really make the line able to be the main power of civ, and the Urumi rework could also give other usage for Urumi to make them different.
If neeeded, I am willing to nerf Wootz Steel and to make it cheaper, like having infnatry and cavalry only ignore X melee armor at most. The X may be 4. This also returns the uniqueness to Leitis.
When thet have the wood bonus as an aggresive bonus, they honestly don’t have too many powerful option that can be used in aggresive strategies on land, so they are weak and have to play conservatively, using spearmen and skirmishers rather than strong units in the early game.
If the double Supplies and Gambesons work, the Longswordsmen could be used to push enemy effectively, they do not really need easier access to Pikemen and Halberdiers. Well you may say it would be fine to remain it.
I like this change very much especially for the possibility of Urumi to be able to function as a raiding and anti-raiding unit. Somebody else had brought this out as well I remember and mentioned this would be the equivalent of 1 PA which was the only change suggested by Hera to make Urumi possible to play with. This one change can make the unit viable in real games. The base speed however needs to be 1.15 to have some utility as a raider unit.
Barracks have only 4 technolgies : Supplies, Arson, Squires and Gambersons. With just 20 HP more, they likely to survive 50% longer. But the point of raiding it not always to kill. But just idle the economy. I find the idea of ‘Spice Trade’ I had suggested earlier to address this exact issue.
This technology could have made for a 'Healthy Economy'(Pun intended) and work similar to a HP bonus. But on playing more I realized the Poles with a better bonus don’t really hold better to raiding despite regenerating @ 20 HP/min. So HP might not fix the problem. Its speed which is needed. I think the version that will work for Dravidians is the one below.
Besides, Hindustanis, Gujjaras, Bengalis get a atleast a couple of economy bonus/unique techs which scale well till imperial age. But the only bonus of Dravidians of 200 wood just scales poorly as the game progresses and wood discount on Siege just comes in because of this. So why not one or two bonuses/techs for Dravidians? I would remove the 33% wood discount on Siege and improve the economy as well as villagers with something like this.
barracks technologies applies to Villagers
You get 30% cheaper vills in feudal which will result in economy savings and possibly more milita line units or Elephants later. Vills will be 10% faster in castle age making up for Knight raids.
The real place for the Thirisidai is when you’re pop capped. They’re basically equivalent per cost as galleons against fire ships, better against galleons and demo ships, but are about twice as powerful as galleons per pop space, and produce just 11% slower.
So basically, Dravidians can produce the same strength of fleet, with half the docks and half the population capacity.
Not exactly, they deal roughly 20 to 33 % more damage only compared to Galleon depending on the number of additional arrows that hit. They have 1 tile less range and LOS. They move 10% slower, train 11% slower and reload 15% slower which make them poor choice against fires and demos. But they do provide a power spike if you reach imp on an equal footing with your opponent without getting pop-capped.
Don’t forge the 50% extra HP and 2 extra armor! I fiddled with them a bit in the editor, and 5 of them can achieve basically similar results to 10 galleons against fire ships. Perhaps slightly worse, but still, dramatically more population efficient.
True, I don’t expect they will be used much in castle age, except like 1-3 if the situation demands it. But in imp after mahouts, BE would be comparable to cavalier. Also, EA and AE would be a real threat with their speed.
LC with free armor would be useable against siege and monks. They will still probably die in the process to other units on the battlefield, but it wouldn’t feel as bad since they would accomplish their task with much less investment. Also, you can make a lot of scouts in feudal and upgrade to LC with full armor once you get to castle age. That would provide Dravidians with a serious raiding force until the enemy makes a lot of knights or camels.
There are many ways to use this bonus. One way is to kill the starting scout and then go FC. Without information, the enemy might be too worried about getting rushed to expect it. Lack of scouting also makes Dravidians very unpredictable in Feudal as they would have a bonus for just about every Feudal strat.
I don’t think devs will ever remove the Castle age weakness of Dravidians completely, but my suggestion makes them less bad.
Double supplies would make Urumis even more useless and I think the devs intend only Gurjaras to have 30 food LS. Double Gambesons makes Malians feel less unique and gambesons itself is power creeping on Malians since they don’t get it. Also, note Gurjaras had to lose both Champ and 2HS for just the cost reduction.
EBE is still priced like a TG upgrade and doesn’t feel good in 1v1 without last armor and bloodlines. I would much rather have those than EBE.
This is great, but only helps in late Imp. Dravidian’s castle age weakness means they will still have problems getting to this point.
Agree with this one. I previously suggested something similar. Your version makes it harder to use the charge attack in the presence of ranged units. I think urumis would need an increase in base attack if this is implemented.
Trouble with the Urumi is, if you sacrifice the charge attack, you lose the entire point of the unit and turn it into something completely different. Make it too fast, and it’ll hard counter almost everything. Give it too much pierce armor, it’ll hard counter almost everything.
The big struggle with their design, I think, is that they go from really bad to really good at the drop of a hat. If you’re outnumbered, they’re terrible, because they use their charge attack to no effect and then just die. But if you have equal or superior resources in them, they hard counter EVERYTHING. Seriously, go watch a game where someone manages to get enough that even like 5 can get to a mass of archers. The archers just get obliterated, it’s hilarious.
Like this video. He gets a critical mass of urumis, annihilates the meatshield, and chases down and destroys a significant mass of crossbows. Every single attack was killing one or more crossbow. By the end of the fight the score had shifted by a thousand points.
Like, how do you balance something like that? Make it too easy to get to, and you just get overwhelmed every single game. Make it too strong, you get overwhelmed every single game.
