If there was a new Indian DLC, two of the new civs could be the Sinhalese and Gupta. Both of these people groups were known for using chariots in battle. The problem is, the Bengalis currently take up the only chariot unit in the game (outside of heroes, of course). My solution: split up the Ratha and Ratha Archer and make them regional units. That’s right, the Ratha will no longer have the ability to change weaponry, but is available to multiple civilizations.
The Ratha will replace the Knight, so it will not be available to the Sinhalese and Guptas, who will have Knights, but will not replace the Cavalry Archer or the Elephant Archer, as the Sinhalese will have Elephant Archers and the Guptas will have Cavalry Archers, but both will have the Ratha Archer. Since the Sinhalese will not have normal Rathas, their melee equivalent will be in the form of a unique unit, the Sinhala Chariot.
As for the other Indian civs, the Hindustanis and the Gurjaras will not have either Ratha, but the Bengalis and Dravidians will have both variants. In the case of the Dravidians, this would be a much-needed raiding unit (actually, two), solving multiple problems in one.
As for the new Bengali UU, maybe it could be the Kamboja Horseman, which is a cavalry unit. Not sure what it would do, but maybe it could switch weaponry so at least that mechanic is still intact for the Bengalis.
Not every local ethnicity needs its own civ. it fine for multiple culture within an region or empire to be represented by a single Civ. Italians represents several separate City States/Small Nations they however they are similar enough in language and culture that don’t need to be represented by 5 different civs. China is represents a much larger area that has only been united relatively recently I wouldn’t mind them being broken up.
If Dawn of the Dukes and Lords of the West were DLCs, so could any of the ‘new’ Indian DLC civs be split up into more civs.
We already had one Europe DLC, and yet we got another one. So why not another Indian DLC? Of course, having one immediately after is a weird decision (and getting Dawn of the Dukes immediately after Lords of the West was also weird), so I’d rather the next DLC be from somewhere in Africa.
I don’t think the OP meant the next DLC had to be Indian DLC, just ‘in the future’.
However, I disagree with the idea. Just because Rathas have chariots does not mean other new units can’t have one. Changing weaponry is also the unique part about Ratha, as otherwise what would the new Ratha units get? What’s the point? Just a visual change when compared to Knights, or be ‘Knights that cost Wood and Gold’, or the Cavalry Archer version is just a tanky Cavalry Archer that costs more wood?
They’d have to be nerfed stat-wise just like Elephant Archer was, if they were trainable through Stables or Archery Ranges, and then they’d just be even weaker.
I dunno, it seems a little odd to me for there to be a chariot regional unit when the word Ratha literally means “chariot.” It just seems like making the Ratha a regional unit not only makes sense if we’re gonna introduce civs that can train them, rather than introduce a Chariot at the Stable and Chariot Archer at the Archery Range. I mean, I suppose we could, but then they would seem slightly redundant with the Ratha.
Well, Rathas have more HP than Knights, and a lot more HP than Cavalry Archers, although moving slower than both. Maybe they can retain these attributes if they become regional.
AoE2 naming quirks aside (by that logic, many existing civs should get Ghulam), we could just add new chariot units to the game.
And will the melee Ratha also retain the Skirmisher weakness then? Their current design is that it’s more or less a Knight, or the ranged Ratha a Cavalry Archer. Their only real change from the units is that melee Ratha is weak to Skirmishers and ranged Ratha is much tankier than a Cavalry Archer.
Breaking them apart makes them just pointless, you could just have those civs train a Knight instead. It’d be a pointless regional unit that has no real difference from the unit it’s replacing. Consider other regional units: Steppe Lancer (Medium Cavalry with 1 range), Camel (anti-Cavalry), Battle Elephant (slow, expensive, more powerful Knight), Elephant Archer (slow, expensive, more powerful Cavalry Archer that costs food). What niche would Ratha fill? It’d be mostly a visual change.
Everything else would make them too close to an Elephant, which some of the civs already get.
They did, actually. If you look at the Wikipedia articles for several medieval Sinhalese kingdoms, they all used chariots as one of the main components.
An army consisted of four main divisions; an elephant corps, cavalry, chariots and infantry.[70] This combination was called Chaturangani Sena (fourfold army)
(emphasis added)
And here is something about the Kingdom of Kotte:
The military consisted of four main departments, namely
So, as you can see, at least two Sinhalese kingdoms made chariots a core part of their army. The first one is one of the most famous empires of Sri Lanka, and one of the most influential of India as a whole, and that kingdom made chariots one of the main four components, so if any civilization should have chariots, it should be the Sinhalese.
But I highly doubt anyone in the indian subcontinent or the world for that matter used chariots in war fare extensively during the middle ages.Ancient era yes chariots were used by everyone.
It’s not as strange as it sounds. The Indian subcontinent didn’t have access to good horse breeds, so unless they imported horses from elsewhere, chariots were the only effective way they could utilize horses for a long time.