As a Magyar player, I’m feeling as if the Monaspa still feels wrong/too countre to some units, especially given its cheap cost. This is especially the case when you find that they move at the same speed as (H.)C.A.s, which largely only with the Magyar unique tech countre the Monaspa.
Now this is with respect to Team Games mostly, though 1 vs 1s… could have a unit mass more easily or have those units maintained given their Civilisation’s bonuses. So I’d still argue they’re too good as a civ. They only have Very Random Micro-Fractures in their tech tree allowing them to largely countre everything/anything.
For example missing Atonement & Illumination - the latter can be detrimental… But seeing as how it’s the enemy that has to go monks against them it doesn’t matter too much, you still get redemption monks against BBCs for example with Block Printing.
I really would prefer something where their unique unit is actually a bit more generic with less armour & a bit more H.P. - as the -1 ranged armour compared to Paladins is almost meaningless given that they’re around 2/3rds the H.P. of them, they are cheaper units which are still easily massable even from castles particularly if their economy is reasonably set up (e.g. it equates to +1 castle & steady food/gold for Monaspas) and again they’re a good bit faster.
Even after the bug got patched, they’re way too simple to use (i.e. they do too much damage meaning enemy mistakes are far more costly - then you only have 4 or so things to worry about with this unit #1 Ethiopian Arbs, #2 Mongol C.A./Mangudai, #3 Tartars who have been able to get Exploding Camels or C.A. on top of hills that you MUST take for some reason, #4 Magyar Heavy C.A. [whoops I forgot, the extra range & +1 damage isn’t going to get you much here], so the real #4 is of course monks which just got so heavily nerfed by devotion).
It is a Teutonic Knight which moves at 1.75 times the speed & instead of getting tickled in melee it gets poked, then somehow gut-punches everything else. And the civ isn’t nerfed in terms of its Trash apart from missing skirmisher armour.
I didn’t play for 2 months apart from a few team games with friends. And it’s not like this 1 situation is so ridiculous as to be a 2nd Mangudai - i.e. another brain-dead unit from an extremely strong civilisation.
They are still very good at taking down buildings. What I like is the production speed, its good for encouraging going unique units and I believe that devs should consider increasing the production speed for some underused UUs. I mean, having one castle is still competitive for georgians against double stable, which is good IMO. Maybe the unit itself is still too strong, but the creation time is great.
Comapred to other cavalry UUs, Monaspas has way too many upsides than downsides, let’s check it:
Lowest gold cost of “heavy” cavalry UUs.
Fastest trained cavalry unit in the game.
Better melee armor than Paladin.
Faster than Paladin.
Can scale up to 22 attack when grouped (whcih means they can kill arbalests without Ring Archer Armor in 2 hits, Halberdiers without Plate Mail Armor in 3 hits and Villagers in 2 hits).
Even better ROF than Paladin and other cavalry UUs (1.8 vs 1.9).
Can recover HP passibely.
Take less damage when fighting from hills.
After Aznauri Cavalry UT take less pop space as well.
The Georgian Castles are also easier to keep safe due to the team bonus (less stone spent for repairing) and civ bonus (take less damage if is on hill, so a guaranted Monaspa spam.
Civ also can get a powerful eco to get there.
Downsides:
Less HP than Knight line.
Less Pierce Armor than Paladin (but same as Light Cavalry and Cavalier, enough to make them a strong raiding unit).
Not strong when are in few numbers (but again having a large number of them is really easy).
Needing Castle to get there (But again, 1 Castle is just enough to mass them, is equal to 3 stable going Knights).
So yeah, no wonder why from lower ELOs to top players all Georgian games is mostly about going into Monaspa deathball and kill most things.
Monaspa seriously need nerf, try to compare them to other Cavalry UUs and see no other has such amount of advantages without notorious downsides, at least the training time should be nerfed to something like 15 seconds.
I saw a test on YouTube monaspa only lose to Letis in melee fight, among cavs. Leitis only wins because they ignore armour which monaspas have a lot. But in other scenarios monaspa could be stronger than leitis, which makes monaspa the strongest horse unit in game. Georgian also have more bonus for cav than Lithuania
As someone pointed out in a different thread, Georgians start is not as good as Mayans 1 extra villager to have same penalty. I still think the penalty should be changed to wood.
And Monaspa gold cost be increased by 5. Maybe even 10.
