The problem with this? It’s a bit too extreme with the damage for castle age. Yeah, sure, arambai have high attack, but they’re very inaccurate, even when compared to gunpowder units. Janissaries, hussite wagons, organ guns, and conquistadors pose a HUGE threat in early castle age, but nothing is done about it. It just seems like the power spike is a bit too much.
Also, Spanish shouldn’t be forced into conqs so much.
Gunpowder UU adds some variety in mid game. It is unfun to see games with knight-play. And Spanish can do proper knight rush or monk rush.
You’ll take my castle age gunpowder units from MY COLD DEAD HANDS!
Im not saying they should be removed, but they should have damage nerfs.
But they shoot way slower than xbow.
But they also deal about as much damage as an imperial age hand cannon
Most of those civs have a slow boom and eco to that point. A viking can eco and Flush circles around a Spanish or Turk player.
Portuguese certainly don’t have a slow boom. Turks fast imp is also very common
Men in Black reference?
Charlton Heston reference 
Speech from NRA regarding gun ownership rights. 
If their dmg output is worse than xbow, they will probably be another civs going knight or xbow. Besides, all gunpowder UUs have received nerf pretty hard.
Would you explain how lethal it is?
I didn’t say it had to be a huge damage nerf, just one to two damage less, and what the heck do you mean by
? My point is, they shouldn’t have such a major emphasis on a single unit. Even Goths can’t continuously spam huskarls against heavy cav or better infantry. Also, Sicilians used to rely on only their unique unit about six months ago. And why are Sicilians terrible now? Their unique unit is terrible, that’s why.
Why Goth would spam huskarl instead of cheap pikes against knight?
For Conq and Janissary, mass xbow and elite skirm should be fine. For organ guns and wagons, mangonels should do fine.
Totally agree with you. Those units are overpowered in closed and nomadic maps where castle drops are common and don’t scale well in imperial age. In my balance discussion thread I proposed -1 base attack for non-elite organ guns, hussite wagons and -3 attack for conquistadors, chemistry giving +2 attack for gunpowders in imp. This way their elites are stronger than now and useful in imp but castle age versions are less overpowered.
He’s not suggesting to completely remove the possibility of playing such units, just to balance them and buff their civs instead. With such changes you might be able to get your castle up even a min sooner than now or produce more units within the same time but it won’t be a zero brainer where you did a few gunpowder units and its gg for the opponent.
But they can kill units sooner. And they shoot just 50% slower than xbow but have 2.5-3x the damage output. What’s wrong if they had 2-2.5x the damage output instead? Its still higher net dps than xbows but not abnormally high.
They are played as timing-based units and don’t need a boom. On closed maps, Nomadic maps where feudal or early castle rush isn’t effective, these units are almost impossible to stop.
Crossbow deal 3-6 damage depending on upgrades. Gunpowder units deal 12-15 damage despite requiring zero upgrades.
what? Except Janissary all other gunpowder castle units got buffed. Hussite wagons shoot all projectiles simultaneously while they had a delay on secondary projectiles a year ago. Organ guns fire more projectiles and each of them do full damage now, which is a huge buff against all units other than mangonels in castle age. Conqs have higher projectile speed, even Janissaries have improved accuracy which is one of the reasons why their range had to be reduced.
Crossbows are only a soft counter to jannies and conqs, and skirmishers have to be upgraded to elite skirmisher and have fletching, or else they’ll be outranged. Mangonels take longer to train than hussite wagons and organ guns, and castle dropping shuts down all counterplay to these units. Also, I’m not saying the problem is the imperial age gunpowder units, but rather the castle age gunpowder units. The major problem is that these units counter EVERYTHING in early castle age.
I will agree gunpowder to get nerf in castle age if they can get compensation in imp.
For Conq and jani, they are strong vs camels and knight or infantry but they are not strong vs xbow. And they are predictable when they play in these maps. Xbow techs should be prioritized to research. For hussite wagons and organ guns, knight/monks/mangonels should be still fine.
Btw, after thumb ring, xbow have half Rof of gunpowder? Xbow should shoot twice faster (unless you compared to only Conq)? And xbow has low hp. Jani and Conq will have more overkill when facing xbow.
Janissary -1 range
Conq -1 PA, addition of CA class since DE
Organ guns is a rework rather than sole buff and they are not good vs knight/mangonels.
Hussite wagons still needs mass to be effective. Before the buff, there were complaints that they were weak.
Forgive me but conqs have 2/2 base armor. How are they weak to archers 1 for 1?
Not anymore, it got nerfed to 2/1 quite a while ago now.
They’re still superior early on, due to a range advantage. The same goes for jannies. The main reason conquistadors got their pierce armor nerfed was to make town centers more effective against them.
You need to get xbow upgrade, f letching, bodkin, ballistics and a big number of xbows while Conqs and janis dont need any extra upgrades to do damage, just a few can do a lot of damage to eco and kill the early cavalry units. And when mangonels/scorps are added, xbow has to run or depend on cavalry to kill the siege while conqs/janis can take it out themselves. Like 2 mangonels at base might be enough to defend 20 xbows with bodkin and ballistics but 10 conqs or janis will kill both the mangonels.
You’re talking from an Arabia game perspective which is not the setting where these units are problematic. When did you last do 2 range fc xbow with early thumb ring and ballistics on Nomad, Hideout or Arena. Its very situational on nomadic maps when you and opponent are very close to each other and even more rare on closed maps. You won’t be able to do damage despite all those expensive upgrades on such maps. Knights, xbows gameplay doesn’t fit such maps most of the time.
Janis range was broken, they used to outrange mangonels. But otherwise they’re still the most popular closed map uu and after the nerf Turks are still the most picked civ on Arena.
The conq pa was a very poor inappropriate change imo. Spanish is still by far the most picked civ on Nomadic maps even after the tc start was nerfed. It didn’t change anything about their usage in such settings where castle drops, gunpowder uu, monks and siege are commonly played. While it made them unusable in the standard open maps like Arabia where they weren’t OP. If their base attack is reduced to something like 11, you can buff Spanish early game even more, give Conqs that p.armor and remove CA class armor. That will still be an overall nerf for that unit but quite balanced on multiple settings. I’d prefer 13 attack and 1 p.armor though.
Yes it was the worst uu in the game but now quite decent after the buff. Overall a buff compared to what it was a year ago. Likewise for organ guns too