Elite Genoese Crossbows

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

The Elite Genbow is perhaps the worst UU upgrade in the game.
Note that pre-DE Elite Genbow was almost necessary, because it made them fire from once every 3 seconds to once every 2 seconds, and that was an amazing increase. Since DE though, castle age genoese fire at the same rate as elite, so now that is gone.

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You pay 900 food, 750 gold for +5 HP and +2 bonus damage against cavalry, nothing else. This is ridiculously low value and you are better off making more genbows rather than getting the elite upgrade, maybe until I don’t know, there are 100 units of the field.

Compared to the longbowman upgrade and rattan archer upgrade, which are 2 comparable ETs (plumed archer not included because it costs wood and food), that also cost a similar amount of resources, we see:

850 food 850 gold for +5 HP, +1 attack, +1 range, +1 pierce armor, +10% accuracy (britons don’t get thumb ring so it actually matters).

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1000 food 750 gold for +5 HP, +1 attack, +1 range, +2 pierce armor.
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Compared to Elite Longbow and Elite Rattan, Elite Genbow is such a bad upgrade it’s not even worth getting in 95% of situations.

I am going to draw a comparison to the chu ko nu that perhaps Genbows are meant to have 7 max range no matter what, as they would be too good otherwise, but what about buffing elite Genbows a bit, something like

900 food, 750 gold for +5 HP, +1 base attack, +1 pierce armor, +2 bonus against cavalry
So FU (with Pavise) Elite Genoese have 50HP, 7 attack, +7 against cavalry, 4 range, 5 melee armor, 6 pierce armor (range, damage, armor are same as CA, and in exchange of extra speed and +30hp you get +7 against cavalry). This sounds a lot more reasonable for it’s value compared to what we currently have.

21 Likes
2

I agree, the elite unit needs a buff. it’s much better to make more of them than to upgrade them to elite. Doesn’t make much sense

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3

Yea the elite one isn’t that great, plus being so expensive to upgrade, FE overestimated the gen xbow strenght.
But at the same time other archer UUs need a nerf, Chu Ko Nu and Plumes need one.

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4

Even though you forgot to mention that the Elite upgrade provides a reduction in training time (from 18 to 14 seconds), which is nice for a unit that is created out of the Castle, I agree that the Elite upgrade provides too little benefit.

Giving them extra range would perhaps make them too similar to Arbalesters. Extra pierce armor may work, but I think giving them extra melee armor would fit their identity better.

6 Likes
5

I think that the Imp Genoese Xbow should have these stats:
50HP
1/0 armor
8 damage
8 cav bonus
4 range

Genoese should have nice and big damage, since his range is capped at 4.

6

I think just increasing their bonus damage against cavalry further would be enough actually. Like +9 vs cav and +7 against camels.
Don’t think GC need more damage or range. (I actually think the 1 less range can be situationally an advantage actually).

7

Lol I forgot that you say the elite gen crossbow is bad, when go and look what elite chu Ko Nu provides

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8

The dude goes from firing 3 to 5 arrows, also has a unique tech that gives him +2 attack.

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9

Yeah Elite chu ko nu shred rams and sometimes even buildings.

10

And a debuff of ROF…

Thats why Chu Ko Nus are just stupid lol

11

bruh that means the only units they can fight are cav and inf, and even then, id rather have a faster archer, or an archer with bigger range.

12

Don’t forget that Italians have over FU arbs. You only need to mix in a few GC.
Don’t think it was ever intended to make an army full of GC. It’s an addition to your archers.

(Regarding that I remember the last time we spoke about it a lot of us came to the conclusion that because of that the elite upgrade is actually mostly too expensive)

1 Like
13

Obviously firing more = firing less ?

Chu Ko Nu is a pretty cool UU.

14

that sucks. Then why not make them stronger but keep or increase their training time, so you can mix with arbs?

15

I think it might be the most useless elite upgrade ever, tied to the Elephant Archer one for cost vs utility.

Either cut that cost by 30/40% or buff attack and bonus damage, and possibly even melee armor to keep GC unique compared to other archers.

4 Likes
16

I can’t really answer that. But I think the idea was that if you add in a few GCs to your archer ball you can hit the critical mass with way less. As Cavalry has comparably high HP and pierce armor normally those are who decide what the critical mass is.
In theory this would open Italians multiple further options other archer civs don’t have like having to uinvest way less for a critical mass, adding more trash units or splitting the archer forces to herass from multiple angles.

Interestlingly we don’t see this, so the question is what causes this to not be viable in this manner? Or are we just too stupid and lack awareness to make these plays happen?

It could be possible that the investment into castles is just too high for that kind of addition?

17

I prefer the elite version can be produced in TC (with longer training time), like flemish militia. Its hard to reach critical mass in 1v1 to counter cavalry while Italians does not access to halbs. The stats of GC is just fine. Maybe +0.1 speed to make more engagement or +1 atk to make it more worthwile.

1 Like
18

I also agree that Elite version of Genoese can get more buff. +1 attack +2 more attack against cavalry (+9 Total), and +2 or 3 Melee Armor is good. Pierce armor is also helpful but I prefer Melee armor that it fits more to Genoese identity. as @Mercy9545 suggest

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19

100% possible.
That’s why I said the elite upgrade was tied with elite elephant archer for utility vs cost.
If you just need a castle to train 10 units, they’d better be exceptionally strong at what they do to justify paying so much for an elite upgrade, let alone the castle cost itself.
Now imho the base Genoese Crossbowman is even less worth than the regular Elephant Archer, cause EA shreds archers and can tank arrows forever, regular GC doesn’t kill cavalry that fast honestly, and in archer vs archer the shortest range doesn’t help.
Not a bad unit, but hard to make use of it in a consistent way.

2 Likes
20

Elite Foot archer UUs and Janissary needs buff in general. Too expensive, in contrast unworthy stats upgrades.