Well, they still come out of Castles. The enemy can then overwhelm you with his knights/cavaliers, especially if they know you’re going for that (ie.you don’t have money for camels)
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I just struggle with how exactly they could be made better, statistically. They seem purposeless. They’re like rams but without the ability to destroy buildings. And even there they’re honestly not as tanky per cost in any regard.
They kinda do a variety of things, but none of them well, and jack of all trades units tend to only be good in the hands of players who don’t know how to use more specialized units to their maximum potential.
But if you buff a JOAT unit to the point where it’s useful in one of its niches, it suddenly becomes useful in a wide variety of places and might even become OP.
With this unit you can’t really make it more resistant to Halbs, or to Skirms, because those are intended weaknesses. You can’t increase its range, because then it won’t automatically tank anymore. You could increase its damage a bit, I suppose, but then you start getting into overlap with the Hand Cannons. Nothing seems to fit.
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The problem in the case of Paladin vs EA, not only are the paladins cheaper on an individual unit basis (the upgrade costs end up being roughly the same once you count Parthian Tactics, Thumb Ring, Ballistics, and Chemistry which you need extra that the paladin doesn’t) but that the Elephant Archer needs a Castle to produce and the Paladin user just needs stables. Making a lot of stables is faster and cheaper than making a lot of castles and it’s a much easier buildup. Dropping 4 stables is close to the cost of one castle in a less precious resource and it’s going to dwarf the Castle production speed.
Add in the fact that you need a University, a Stable, an Archery Range, and a Castle to ensure they get full upgrades, and it’s a very, very expensive leap. Certainly one of the most, if not the most, expensive units in the game to get upgraded.
On the subject of “what to do with it.” It’s really simple, actually.
Just give them 100 more HP from the elite upgrade, but decrease their Cavalry Archer armor class by 1 (to -3 as opposed to -2) and decrease their War Elephant armor class by 5 (to -5 as opposed to 0)
EDIT: thought I’d clarify before someone said something obvious. When I said 100 “more” hp from the elite upgrade I meant over the standard unit. I don’t want the elite upgrade pushing the units up to 450 hp. I want them at 400.
That way, the normal units that have bonus damage against them will still deal approximately the same damage to them (as a percentage of total HP) but they’ll be buffed significantly against non-counter units.
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How about giving elephant archers transport capacity? It could mean for them to fire faster/extra arrows, offensive capabilities and movement speed wouldnt be as much of an issue as it is right now, and also it could protect indian archers from mangonel/onager and other siege fire. Tho I would recommend also giving the archers capacity to fire a tiny bit faster in exchange for the -1 range.
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I thought about that, the challenge is, the primary supporting archer Indians have are Hand Cannons, which lose their +10 infantry damage when garrisoned in something. So you’d be sacrificing a lot for a two-population unit that still doesn’t do much damage.
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■■■■, haven’t looked that much at Indian TT lol. I was hoping for some LotR Oliphaunt thing going on for Indian UU:(
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I thought i wouldnt like a suggestion like this but after considering it I think it could be nan interesting feature…
A garrisoning ability with extra arrows for archers could make archer rushes a bit better strategy despite not having arbalester.
Also you may garrison skirmishers instead during trashwars.
Since your EA is going to instantly die to halbs and skirms that wouldn’t be viable at all.
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I think of changing the unit and making HC Elephant instead of archer’s this would give more attack and they should have 100% accuracy but again they would become conquistador
Actually, I returned to think that the better way to buff him is tweaking the cost and training time exclusively.
Currently, the tankiest archer in game is the Elephant Archer, but its cost is too much only for the tankiness… War Wagons at least have speed. I wouldnt mind EA stay the same but with better cost of resources and training time.
Trouble is, with their stats as-is, you’d be looking something like halving their resource cost, which would be pretty silly for a unit with so much health.
And even if you did balance it, you’ll just end up with a cheaper worse war wagon, which based on the cost I really doubt they wanted.
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Elephant Archers are incredible tanky. They are very resilent against Ranged unit with their +3 Pierce Armour, and are decent even against Towers (+3 attack bonus, +4 on Elite).
Not to mention that the Elite cost is not even very expensive for what you get. Essentially a Cavalry Archer that cannot be countered by Skirmishers, and is very population efficient in maxed out battles.
Trouble is, they’re actually countered fairly effectively by skirmishers. It takes a lot of them, but per cost they still lose. That might change in the lategame when population becomes significant, but at that point it also becomes much easier to get Halbs into them due to their slow speed, which are an even more efficient counter.
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I would buff their cost a bit, not by half. That can be enough for long games where pop is an issue
In case we opted to buff their stats, i would buff their attack_related stats. All elephants besides EA have huge destructive power.
Maybe it would be fine to buff their range, so they became like a slow, tanky sniper with more accuracy than indians HC.
They do have 100% accuracy even without Thumb Ring, so I would be careful about buffing their Range.
They could make thumb ring mandatory for them to have 100% acuracy in exchange… Or even partian tactics.
They have short range compared with foot archers. Foot archers with thumb ring have same accuracy and more range. Despite the accuracy, they lack of offensive power.
Another possible offensive buffs would be attack rate, damage, or damage bonus but other cavalry archers UU have some of these. There are no cavalry archer with more range.
Having 100% accuracy without Thumb Ring is one of their major selling points, though.
Along with good anti-Building damage.
I think good buff could be by allow Elephant Archer fire multiple arrows. Maybe 3 for normal and 4 for Elite. And lower the attack to compensate.
They will become after this Skirm-killers being resistant to the Onagers.
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Kipchak and Cho-Ko-Nu already do this. EAs do not need this, specially for a unit that already has anti-building damage.
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Ok, well, they could buff their range only for the elite EA, but nerf the upgrade cost in exchange?