Chances are it’s personal opinion, or monk rush arena clownery wouldn’t exist. There will be people who agree with you though.
Just remembered this one (from min 15:30): The Vululu Play of The Year | Golden Pit vs Hera - YouTube
Slightly different context bc “only” 3 monks and defensive boom instead of full monk no eco play but it aptly shows how powerful using control groups for monks can be (if you don’t already know the clip).
Totally agree that individual monks are insanely strong, possibly even too strong.
But that doesn’t change that higher amounts of monks are insaly hard to micro.
Also you put one of the best monk plays ever out here… What actually indicates that it is actually very hard to pull that of, cause if it was that easy, everybody would do it.
IMO individual low numbers of monks are too strong but in higher numbers they become terribly hard to micro. And I think both of this should be adressed.
Yeah sure that play was great but what made it so creative I think is the tc ungarrison. Putting control groups you can make in advance and then pressing 1,2,3,4 and clicking targets in between isn’t actually that hard. Might be a bit unusual if you’re not used to that mechanic but once you’ve done it couple of times it’s not that difficult.
And monks in larger groups are way more difficult to micro, yes. But as said in the other post if you have theocracy it’s still a pretty effective play. You usually don’t do that on open maps but imo it’s completely fine to stick to couple of monks here for initial defense and then transition into other units later on. This way I think we have a better balance for defensive play. Because otherwise it might be easy to just boom and play monk mangonel defense.
And on closed maps going for lots of monks is already super strong if you have a civ with the necessary upgrades. If microing large groups of monks would be made easier I fear monk rushes get op.
1 Like
Just want to butt in to remark how strongly I agree with this 
2 Likes
This is an extreme example but imagine if every civ had access to conquistadors from their archery ranges, but they were all stuck-on no-attack making them impossible to use without constant babysitting this makes it difficult for you to use conqs in high numbers unless you are very skilled at conq micro. meanwhile the AI is absolutely scary with its infinite bohemian trash Conqs spam. I would rather have conqs that are actually balanced and don’t have to be handicapped by awful controls. Also, I am perfectly fine with Vills that auto attack however nerfs their attack speed or something they should not trade equally with militia.
1 Like
Not all units have to be as easy to use as each other. Knights are easier to use than archers which are easier to use than mangonels which are easier to use than monks, and that’s fine if you don’t like some of them. Some people have their bar lower/higher than others.
3 Likes
None of these are restricted by terrible controls the difficulty in using mangonels comes from the predicting your opponent’s locations.
- I am against 1. If not already, Shift-clicking should convert the next unit with all valid monks once the current conversion finishes. This is only useful when you have theocracy
- 2: it is bad in the current game state, with bohemian food only monks. If we change that, maybe. But auto-convertion stance will probably fundamentally change the game. Monks are not supposed to be the bulk of an army, but I guess it is up to debate. So I am against it too.
- 3: I like this idea to convert all units of the same type at once. But it would rather not have it with shift-click. Is there a possible alternative like Ctrl-Click
Mangonels definitely are since more often than not they can end up splashing your own troops without baby sitting. And at least monks don’t suffer from accuracy issues unlike archers before ballistics and mangonels. There is no dodging conversions, which is a clear upside.
As of auto-converting monks, AoM:EE and AoeO did them, and guess what it gives? They have to convert so slowly that your army will end up killing whatever they were converting first anyway.
Yeah I also think this can’t be the goal, as this would clearly break the game,
We need to find some middle ground. Monk micro should stay at one of the highest levels of microing units. Nevertheless the discrepancy and dependency on numbers is just too high in comparison imo.
2 Likes
i think monk being harder to micro is a fair compensation for how potentially strong the conversion is. just the existance of monks sometimes can force your opponent to pick Faith and/or heresy to protect a key expensive unit, costing a ton of gold, much more than what you invested in monks, and they just require to convert 1 knight to pay for themselfs and even more
if monks are made easier to micro, they should then be nerfed as well.
3 Likes
Monk is a broken unit. Like a vil, you have to tell each monk which unit they have to attack.
It’s not coherent with the game. Bowman does’t wait to be ask to attack someone.
I beleive monk is a very powerful unit and the only way they found to balance it, it’s make it very hard to macro.
“Just practice in the editor for a while…” it’s a proof that a problem. No one go in editor mod and train to attack with his units.
" you can assign up to 20 control groups"… how to tell people to create macro on their computer.
2 Likes
best way to use monks is using the scattered formation and selecting one by one. using the control groups 1 by 1 is awful in my opinion, and it can get confusing fast if you click the same number twice by mistake. (my opinion! if you like having your control groups filled with monks, lucky you!)
I used the scattered formation a few days ago vs knights , i had 10 monks in my base and it worked quite well. Unfortunately the rest of the knights killed the knights i converted and also my monks, and that’s when i realized that going full monk+mango is not a good idea, which lead me the conclusion that monks suck in Castle Age XD
i also agree that the Unique Techs for monks are all crappy.
Auto Convert seems op, but maybe a “Convert-Patrol” button could be useful. Think about it, Patrol makes the units attack any enemy that comes near, why wouldn’t a monk do the same the way he knows how? waving a book and yelling some nonsense. Makes sense to me, seriously 
Would make monks a more interesting unit. Besides they’re super slow, so i don’t see much harm in that.
2 Likes
Inquisition isn’t. The other ones are all bad.
2 Likes
Aha yeah forgot about that one xD that one is okay for sure.
Even if they gave attack move to monks I bet some people would be ready to claim that it’s still too hard because they will start all converting the first target and that’s too much effort for them to redirect them all or something.
No, because monk can work in team to convert unit. And there is an upgrade for only one monk who lose all his faith.
Monk are actually like a military unit stuck in no attack stand(the button with sword in the ground)
Yup but that would still be better than have them just stand there like idiots waiting for the enemy to kill them lol I think it would be a good idea xD
1 Like
I think the solution is fairly straightforward: add a SELECT IDLE MONK hotkey. Still requires micro, disallows monks from doing more than they would if you had 20 control groups, but doesn’t require you to have 20 control groups.
3 Likes