Making a unique unit is not exactly easy…
But making one based on the most expensive unit on the game is even more…
I see little benefit on the Houfnice… yes, extra damage and such, but nothing that training extra regular units wouldn’t compensate…
I think the unit needs some flavor… something that will make it diferentiate from the regular bombard cannons…
Something as little as a halved minimum range would already be worth noticing…
It’s not a combat unit, it’s a siege unit… but could be a lot better with little effort.
Houfnices are already pretty strong (maybe at the verge of being OP).
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I find that bohemian cannons are already pretty good with that extra movement speed. However Houfnice is hard to justify for its cost I think.
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Houfnices are Ethiopian bombard cannons with the perk that you don’t have to play Ethiopians.
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Maybe a little speed for the cannonball
I think the upgrade cost is too high for a unit which is usually not massed. And the upgrade time also. 140 secs…
Just my 2 cents to that.
I think you need to make at least 15 houfnices to pay back the investment, it’s a very high amount for that unit type that costs 450 res each.
And the weakness against light cav stays basically unchanged,
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You get an improved blast radius. So the upgrade is not bad. Especially if you also grabbed the faster movement speed for gunpowder units. You can micro these bad boys against other siege very smoothly.
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They are actually quite op on chocke pointy maps when allowed to be massed.
They have the blast of Ethiopians, almost the dmasge of burgundian, almost the tankinees of turks and can win any BBC duels by fast dodging.
The speed alone would make bohemians BBC quite good already.
I would rather see the upgrade price go down but they loose the increasee blast area to not completely power creep Ethiopians
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Yeah it’s way too expensive and time intensive of an upgrade for what you get. It’s not a big enough power spike to justify. Similar story to some of the elite UU upgrades.
Either the stats need buffed or cost and research time needs to be lowered. Preferably the latter.
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It’s normal that we won’t see houfnices often except on arena/bf teamgames. About as often as siege onager really. But the upgrade is good and is worth it, absolitely shreds archers and siege, oneshots siege onagers and has a large blast radius. It’s just that the vast majority of games don’t get to the point where that’s more relevant than having 20 more regular units on the field.
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Yeah in that kind of maps the unit can certainly be nuts.
But you also don’t win these maps with only one unit type, too.
What would be the optimal comp of bohemians there? Wagons + monks + houfnice? Does this kill eg mass mangudai?
this guy gets it, the rest are indications that you guys likely dont play much
even the blast radius by itself is a huge bonus…
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Why are you wondering whether a siege composition kills mangudai?
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That’s a rhetoric question 
They are quite playable, but you have to use that mining civ bonus well to build an army. Hand Cannoneers seem the most natural way since they only require Chemistry, and armor upgrades. Hand Cannoneers build slowly, thereby requiring more Archery Ranges to mass well. They outright massacre Castle Age Stable units when amassed. Foot Archers are a tempting alternative, since you can transition them straight from feudal, but I would recommend that you try the Cannoneer alternative, at least in the long run. I have found that with the Bohemians, since I am not as Unique Unit reliant as some other civilizations, I can invest a bit of that stone into market money if I desire to accelerate the process.
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