Yes I read it. You are assuming Knights (high HP mobile unit) as the raider. But you forgot Archers are also raiders. And dravs have fully upgraded archers and skirms with unique bonus and ele archers for damage absorption to further complement archer play.
You mean third unique unit?
No. Those solutions work for some other civs like Byzantines. It doesn’t work for Koreans bcz they are bad as a civ, not for the strategy.
You need both PA and HP into consideration. 55 HP 2 PA EW is better at raiding than 120 HP 0 PA Camel. Also you are considering ranged units as raider. They need different criteria than melee units. Anyway, I think we all know which units in the game are raiders and which are not.
Understood. EA has higher dps though specially Dravidians. Also they have more toughness (combination of HP and armor) than WW. On top of that you can make them from Archery Range. I’d personally consider Dravidians EA and Koreans WW equally good (or bad 11) at raiding.
Good job on completely missing the point then, I guess. No, crossbows aren’t good raiding units. That’s for multiple reasons. One, they have low pierce armour and can’t stand castle or TC fire. Two, they can be completely blocked by some house walls. Three, below high levels, a single mangonel or 2 scorpions can completely kill them. Four, they are slow, and can’t catch vils as they move if the vils move under a TC or Castle and Five, You need a block of them for anything, and it is far too easy to lose a mass of crossbows to a bunch of knights. If that happens, it’s a huge loss. Also, crossbows can’t be used in most of the examples I gave.
Let me ask you a question, how many open map games are decided via raiding vs how many are decided through other means? Take all civs, under all circumstances. The problem with koreans isn’t raiding, it’s predictability. They are a one-trick pony.
I feel like you didn’t read the post. Here’s the condition I gave:
This doesn’t specify an exact HP, but if prescribes an HP-pierce armour ratio. For example, a Huskarl, and eagle can do this because of their pierce armour while a knight can do this because pierce armour and HP.
Your personal preference is one thing. But, I think you’d be lying if say that both these units are equally effective at raiding. Even the wiki says that war wagons can be considered a raiding unit.
Well, I wouldn’t consider Armored elephants as a unique unit. Its more of a regional unit for Indian civs.
Weak to monks, insane food cost to afford production, need to be careful about tc fire if you don’t have armor upgrades, can get trapped by larger armies, micro-intensive. WW on the other hand fits the raiding unit profile well: significantly faster, no food cost, armor upgrades come for free, so not a problem if they run under tc while you’re managing eco, only problem being monks. So for a raiding unit its not just things like how many volleys of skirmishers or how many tc arrows it takes to kill the unit or how much dps does the unit have.
I lost the count. I saw more win by raiding than other means because most of the civs are good enough at raiding. It depends on civ. I’ve seen some non-raiding civ winning more games than some raiding civ. So I won’t agree with having a raiding unit is a must for winning.
Good. So a civ can have a good W/R even in Arabia without having a good raiding unit. The civ just need enough strength on other sides. Koreans don’t have them. Do Dravidians have them? I think they are close after the last patch. All they need a BE rework and Medical Crops rework.
I take wiki strategies as a grain of salt. Anyway I’m convinced WW is better than EA at raiding. Didn’t remember the followings -
i personally like the idea of medical corps affecting their light cavalry as well, so that both their cav and that lackluster tech can see more use and fix two problems in one tweak
but also dravidians just got a big buff so i would not change them further for a while
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Cav archers are usually not the biggest threat in Castle Age since by the time they have mass+upgrades, you should already have the most important areas of your eco locked down with TCs or even walls/castles, and use skirm/scorps to defend any weak points. Imp is a different story, but I’m usually more worried about cavalier/hussar by that point. But yeah, having to deal with raids without effectively counter-raiding is a major weakness of the civ. It just looks like they’re dealing with the civ’s overall weakness from a different angle, from giving it an advantage in what was previously another area of weakness (siege).
I gotcha. That comment was more aimed at people offering Urumi reworks (which I think is a great idea, but I’m questioning both whether the devs will go there, as well how necessary that may still be after the latest buffs). But that wasn’t obvious given that I didn’t quote anybody to make it clear that I was referring to that. In case the civ is still struggling generally after the latest buffs, I would recommend that Urumis become more optimized for raiding and/or that the civ gets a wee bit more help with mobility (Husbandry at least). But I’m going to let things play out before I take a hard stance on that.
Solid idea.
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Medical corps at 20 hp that applies to all cavalry should have been made a civ bonus in place of 33% wood discount on Siege.
A new castle age unique tech should have been introduced in place of medical corps that helps overcome Dravidian lack of mobility.
I doubt devs had the time to specifically fix Dravidian civ. They worked on such a big patch. They might have not had time to review all civs. But they need to re-work this civ to be able to play without raiding opponent eonomy. Otherwise, all their work is just junk.
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Medical coros affecting scouta goes completely against the civ identity
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Can we stop with this argument already? This is totally subjective and doesn’t say anything. You say it’s against the civ identity, I say it isn’t. Now what? We do a popularity contest?
It’s better to make an actual argument than repeat this trite phrase.
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The civ has bad cavalry. Giving mediocre bonuses for subpar units is bad design, simple as that
If you want to buff their cavalry give them more cav techs instead od this mess. It still hurts the civ identity because the civ is meant to have terrible cav but at least is less messy
And yes, terrible cav is part of the civ identity, saying its not its like saying that no cav isnt part of meso civs identity
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Eh, I think “identity” is a reasonable beginning to argue for why something is/is not good, but needs follow-up reasons as well. Like I think most of us would agree that giving knights to Dravidians, or free Paladin upgrade to Koreans would be silly because those decisions arguably undermine the current civ design. Yes, it’s subjective, but people are going to butt heads whenever they have a different vision for what a civ should be, regardless if whether they frame it as an issue of “identity” per se.
In general, I agree, although I wouldn’t make this statement an absolute. Sometimes I think it can be interesting or necessary as a way to work around what would otherwise be a crippling tech limitation, or just provide flavor. Like IDK if you’d consider Kamandaran to fall under this category, but I think alternate ways of compensating for weaker or less upgraded units can be interesting. But I agree that any kind of cav regeneration would make more sense on a cav-oriented civ.
I still think Husbandry would do enough to make their lcav more usable, while still being a point of weakness overall. Don’t know what to do about BEs though, since I don’t even know that the Elite upgrade would make them worthwhile.
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Yes there are bonuses that are for non FU unit or wven bad units like the Goth discount, the Malian pierce armour, the Burgundian cav techs, Farimba, the Lith cav bonus, Mongols extra hp for light cav
But those are meant to make the units at least as good as generic or have a diferent functionality or niche
Exactly. You can’t just say “it doesn’t match the civ identity” without further explanation. But also, there are two additional factors to consider. First, how old is the civ, in the context of AoE2. Changing the Chinese start is an issue with civ identity because it was the only civ which had that particular start for several decades now. But, Dravidians are less than an year old to even form a concrete identity. Two, how much it adheres to the civilization in real life. Meso civs don’t get stables or gunpowder because it fits history.
This is where @TungstenBoar’s argument falls apart.
Firstly, this is completely wrong from a historical perspective. Dravidians had one of the strongest elephant armies ever. But, they also had horses, which they brought over from the north and persia. Secondly, the civ, from an AoE2 context, isn’t old enough to form a concrete identity. Third, their “identity” changed with even this patch. They are now a siege civ as well, which didn’t fit with the infantry-naval theme at all.
Lastly, I don’t think your narrow view of the civ, especially without any understanding of the historical context should define the civ.
Oh, you finally got the argument. That’s the point here as well. They are meant to serve an essential niche in the game.
Now, just to be clear, I am not saying that scout cavalry getting medical corps is the ultimate and only solution. What I am saying is that the change is fine, and really doesn’t damage anything. Maybe an alternative raiding unit would do, or (unlikely), the civ is fine without a raiding unit.
Yeah, the identity is malleable to a greater degree than with most civs. Although IMO it at least helps if new buffs/changes conform to the themes of existing bonuses or units. For example, Dravidians were an ele-heavy civ historically, and seem to be intended to play out that way, but their BE is so useless currently that I don’t think it makes any meaningful contribution to the civ’s identity.
This is unnecessary though. Whatever the perceived justification, stuff like this just injects bad energy into the discussion.
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But its not. Even with regen their light cav will never be as good or better as generic in any situation. This isnt like the Mongols who are worse vs archers and better on melee. This is bad design. It fixes nothing that giving more techs wouldnt do a thousant times better without being as misleading
They have good Ele Archers or Siege eles already and your proposal isnt adressing their weak light cav nor weak battle eles. Its just a mid bonus for light cav that doesnt fit the civ at all
“But they had horses” is a nothing argument. All current civs outside of America had horses, and we have plebty of civs with bad cavalry
Tamil cavalry was weak. If we were talking about Kannadigas it would be diferent, but the civ is based on Tamils
I disagree. You cant make Bengalus have Paladins even if they are new. Their stremgths amd weaknesses should be respected
Either way they can have slightly better light cav while still being bad. Giving them a bonus however is dumb
It fits though. Weak siege isnt part of the civ identity like bad cav is. Their siege was just meh before the patch so buffing or nerfing it doesnt change the identity
This isnt like giving Huns siege onager.
Of course it will be. You’ll be able to drop off a few light cav around the map, and run away when trouble arrives. They’ll fully heal in like 2 mins after medical corps. Even if they will be weaker in direct combat, they’ll survive longer, especially against archer civs. This is just factually true. After Wootz steel, they are already stronger than several generic light cavs. So, this would make them strictly better.
You missed the point. I said that to explain the discrepancy between history and game. A civilization in game has to roughly fit the history of the real-world civ, but there are significant discrepancies. That is to say, it’s fine to add minor modifications even if it didn’t exist in real life. Seemingly, you can also take away major strengths of the civs from their real-world counterparts.
Kinda, but not really. Firstly, “Dravidians” as category includes Tamils, Malayalis, Kannadigas and Telugu people. The UU, urumi swordsman, is a malayali concept, not a tamil one.
But you’d argue, “but they speak tamil”. Yeah, but what were they supposed to do? Have them speak 4 languages at once?
In the absence of a kannadiga civ, Dravidians could absolutely represent kannadigas.
Only if you are the arbiter of what fits and what does not.
Ultimately, there is a problem. You don’t have a solution. Somebody else proposed one, but you don’t like it entirely because of personal reasons. That’s fine, but ultimately irrelevant. If you are just going to #### #### this is dumb" or “I don’t like it” arguments, there is no point in continuing this discussion. Have a good one.
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That’s hilarious. If they had 50% win rate in 1v 1 arabia, I’ll shut up. Till then, I see no problem in talking about them.
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For everyone who thinks the civ was designed with a clear identity:
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They were a copy paste of Vikings with most of the xml files and classes almost being identical.
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The cavalry tech tree is the same. The devs just the removed the Knight line to suit the old Indian civ. Why did they not have bloodlines? its not like Dravidians have Mongol or franks like bonus for HP.
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The blacksmith - a carbon copy.
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The urumi is 65 Food 20 gold as Viking beserker. It has the same speed of 1.05. But the unit is similar to shotel warrior in practice without shotel speed.
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The team bonus of Vikings is 22.5 wood discount. Dravidians save 25 wood by not needing to build a house.
The only thing they could not copy paste was their incredible eco bonuses.
I dare you to try it in practice lol. In practive the unit will be worse than Hussars in every single situation outside of TK/Boyar, and for that situation this change does nothing. Bad change, just give them.the last armour ig you want to make it better at raiding
Not at all. On melee they will lose against the Chinese FU light cav.
I dont get what you are trying to say. Are you saying that Im fine with there being major discrepancies? Im pointing out how the doscrepancy isnt even that big and how your change doesnt fix it.
Also theres plebty of civs that take away historical strengths. The Bengalis, Chinese and Japanese should have more gunpowder, Byzantines shouls have better siege, etc.
No, I am just saying it doesnt contradict the civ identity they had. If it doesnt contradict the civ identity its fine. Its not just “I like this” , because honestly I dont. Its just a weird bonus for the civ honestly, I get why its there balance wise though.
Yes they are lol. The UTs are Tamil based, the focus on water is Tamil, the whole military is based on the Tamil military.
Its like saying that the Franks arent based on the late medieval french just because they have Throwing Axemen.