that’d just invalidate Portuguese UT though
I propose 5HP buff for a start, I also wonder if giving HCs more meaningful bonus against rams would be a good idea for a buff. They’re made to counter infantry true, then how about giving them bonus against their best friend rams? It wouldn’t be too broken as rams will still be effective for soaking with the slow reloads of HC
3 Likes
Just give portoguese better rate of fire or some other bonus, it’s not hard to change.
4 Likes
Spanish already have that
2 Likes
Just buff the hand cannoneers directly, they are a bad unit in general and all gunpowder civs are considered weak or below avarage:
Turks, portuguese, italians, spanish, indians
I’d go for a 5% accuracy buff with a +5HP buff and chemistry -10 seconds research time (down from 100 to 90), to buff fast imp strategies
3 Likes
Ah yes I forgot how Ballistics works in the game for a second. You are right, ballistics would not give them 100% accuracy. In that case I agree Ballistics would be appropriate for them.
3 Likes
Then something else…hp, armor, damage, whatever. I don’t think HC should suck for everyone else just beacuse a couple of civs have a HC bonus.
There is a nice Spirit of the Law video where you can see how bad the HC accuracy is even for still targets. And the projectiles are so slow…
1 Like
They already have ballistics and that’s why HC needs a general buff instead of certain civs
And that’s exactly what I’m saying. Give ballistics to HC and have the portoguese UT be replaced by some different gunpoweder bonus.
That’s the problem in my opinion, there shouldn’t be gunpowder civs, HC are a nice and good support unit, but should never be the bulk of your army.
That’s because it’s a unit that comes in too late in the game, but, at the same time, it’s easy and cheap to tech into when you are in imp.
HC are useful for all civs that have powerful infantry or cavalry, especially paladins civs, than instead of paying for all the arbs (or elite UU) upgrades they have to research only chemistry.
In fact, that the main problem of 2 gunpowder civs, italians and portos, that they have good HC, but no powerful units to use in combo.
An army of HC isn’t scary, but if the HC back some paladins, or some HCA, or powerful UU (boyars, huskarls…) then they are doing their job.
That’s why instead I would balance the civs first instead of the HC, or I would balance the HC only through its cost, so that it’s even easier to tech into them.
They don’t need more HP, they are a support unit and they shouldn’t to be on the front lines, and their low accuracy is fine, since to a non-targeted unit they deal 8.5 damage (13.5 if it’s infantry) that’s it’s still a lot.
If any, the only unit that should receive a bit of an accuracy buff, are the Jannisarys, since they should be used already in castle age in lower numbers, but again, just 10% more is enough.
They are supposed to be used vs massed units, so that it doesn’t matter if he hits the targeted unit or a near one.
1 Like
Another more useful buff in my opinion would be to reduce their training time to make them more spammable as a counter unit and to easier a bit the switch.
Just for comparison, an archer takes 27s (18s after conscription) while an HC takes 34s (25s).
For a counter unit that is a lot, and negates part of the advantage of requiring only one tech to unlock it, since you can use them properly as an emergency unit, and for sure it should be more than the archer line.
It would also be more historical accurate, since training a individual to use a rifle takes less than than training a individual to use a bow (which usually required all life).
1 Like
Portuguese have a mediocre but decent all-round army. It makes them versatile, which can be fun, but they lack powerful units, which makes them un-fun. Why would it be bad design for them to have powerful gunpowder units? They’d be versatile AND they’d have powerful units. win-win.
But should it be scary? I can see an argument based on the existence of Goths (though if you’re forcing Goths to go HC you’re probably in a good position anyway), but your whole argument seems to be "they aren’t scary, therefor they shouldn’t be scary’.
An army of british Arbs is scary. Maybe an army of Portuguese HC ought also to be scary?
Balancing by cost could definitely work btw.
The only ‘balance’ I’d oppose is an increase to bonus damage.
Also reducing the TT would make them more generic.
1 Like
It matters actually, because stray projectiles don’t do full damage.
1 Like
What “non gunpowder” civs do you think would surprisingly beneficiate from a HC buff? Koreans? Goths? Khmer?
1 Like
Because the HC aren’t designed to be a powerful unit, paladins are, HCA are, berserks, huskarls, BE, all this can be called powerful units, high attack, HP and so on…
HC even with some more HP and accuracy will never be on their level, they better fit as support to those powerful units, and since portos lack any of those, they can really make useof HC.
That’s exactly the point, it doesn’t have to.
AN army of paladins is scary, and HC only makes it more scarier, since it make it more difficult to counter them with halbs.
Arbs are scary (in particular the ones of some civs) because you can mass them from castle, and they are scary since then, they are also more versitile,while the HC is more specialized.
I would say that they would become more easy to use with both a cost and a TT reduction.
Yes but with their huge attack it’s still a lot of damage.
All cavalry civ that have access to HC to protect their cavalry (paladins, BE, HCA…) then some other too, like goth (to kill enemy champs), teutons (to protect siege and infantry) indians (they are a gunpowder civ, but people often forget about it, and they probably are the best one, sicnd they have both a bonus and some powerful units to support with HC).
1 Like
Britons Arbs are scary because they can outrange their counters. It can virtually setup the conditions for infinite value, where you can constantly kill enemy unist, without losing any yourself.
2 Likes
Not really, in fact arbs have better DPS overall aside for high pierce armor targets. There’s a nice spirit of the law video with some simple tests showing that. If I recall correctly, stray shots do only half damage (after damage reduction from armor). HCs look really good on paper, but when you use them they are very often underwhelming. Now, if they were cheap at least I wouldn’t be complaining that much, but they cost even more gold than an arb while being worse in 95% of the situations…
2 Likes
That doesn’t make sense, if that were so, they wouldn’t be locked behind a tech and cost almost 100 resources of which half is gold (more than arbalests).
They’re not even good with support for Paladins because arbs are better with their fire rate and 100% accuracy
3 Likes
Saw it (I mean… who doesn’t watch SotL…)
True, but vs infantry it’s still 13.5 damage minus the armor, so it’s still a lot, and more than the arbs.
I agree on that, but I think that it would be useful to make them more spammable than buffing their stats.
I partially agree with SotL that a buff to their bonus could be good, but the TT and the cost is what is blocking them more in my opinion.
But they’re one of the easiest unit to tech into it, that why they are a support unit, it’s easy to add them to you army when needed, while arbs need a lot of tech just to upgrade them from archers.
I’m not denying that they need some kind of buff, I just disagree on the kind that they need.
1 Like
They would still remain mediocre units outside fast imp strats and match up against some particular units. TT is not going to change that. We either buff them in some way (hence my preivious proposal about bullet speed and ballistics) or we just reduce their cost to actually reflect their utility. RIght now, HCs cost too much for what they provide to an army composition.
1 Like