Turks were designed in 1999 based on the reality that they neither had to deal with 320 HP ranged elephants that are almost as cheap as knights nor 320 HP conversion-resistant Battle Elephants.
There were only War Elephants, but they were weak enough against monks who didn’t even have Block Printing. Plus, they were more expensive and required a castle.
Now, there’s no way to deal with them. Camels don’t work either because they don’t deal bonus damage against the War Elephant armor class. And Turks only have generic Camels which do not work against Elephants.
Turks aren’t the only civilization weak against elephants, but they are certainly the weakest.
The simplest solution would be to make either Camels or Janissaries deal bonus damage against the War Elephant armor class. Similar to how Italians, who lack Halberdiers, but have a UU that counters Elephants.
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Elephants also have the cavalry armour class so camels still do something. But they indeed still are tanky.
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Their worst matchups are Hindustani and Gurjaras: Turks - 1v1 Random Map | 1200+ - aoestats
But isn’t that because of Camels? Turks have nothing to counter Camels other them Camels. Turks can only soft counter them with Jannisaries.
Giving Janissaries a small bonus damage vs. Camels and Elephants without any bonus against Cavalry could be a relatively easy change that doesn’t impact most matchups at all.
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You are obsessed with this 1 in 1980 (45 x 44) chance of a randomized matchup or even 1 in 2025 if mirror match is possible
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If you pick the civ it becomes 1 in 44. And more if the opponent know which civ counters which.
From the OP’s profile pic it’s safe to say he likes playing as the Turks
Turks DO have a really abysmal win rate against Persians. I don’t necessarily think they need to be GOOD against elephants, but their weakness is pretty overwhelming at the moment.
Perhaps the best thing would be to emphasize their bombard towers. That is an obvious counter, but one that is almost never used in 1v1 situations.
I’ve always thought that upgrades like Guard Tower and Keep should shift the cost of towers from stone to wood, making them more viable.
So if this is pick, why are you picking a civ you know you struggle against elephants with? Then again with superior scouts why arent you being more aggressive?
Maybe you’re mostly familiar with a couple civs and wouldn’t know instinctively how to play others ? I’m mainly a Franks & Byzantines player myself.
The problem lies with both Camels and Elephant Archers, as the stats confirm.
Currently, there’s little reason to train Janissaries, especially in the Imperial Age. Hand Cannoneers not only provide 21% more HP per resource than Elite Janissaries, but they also deal more damage per resource to everything.
An Elite Janissary provides only 0.1243 damage per resource, whereas a Hand Cannoneer provides 0.1341. Not to mention, Janissaries are less accurate than Hand Cannoneers.
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Monk, Scorpions and Camels combo. Before imp, maybe even mass LC, instead of Camels, might work.
Perhaps Bombard Towers should have a bonus against elephants, something like +20 or +30. They’re pretty much the only non-ram units that can tank single shots from BBTs. (+20 would be good, because then Siege Elephants won’t take any extra damage, making them a viable counter for Indian civs.)
I mean, in practice they already have a pretty major bonus against elephants - in that they actually do their full damage to them, because elephants have so much HP!
A bombard tower versus a war elephant does 17.5-ish. By contrast, against something like a siege onager it only does 12. Or 6.66 against an arb.
Maybe people should already be using them against elephants more often…after all, a castle only does 20 dps against them, and costs 5x as much. And turks have Artillery on top of that!
Where are you getting these numbers? Is it related to resources spent?
DPS.
It lowers against softer targets as there is a lot of overkill damage, notably 2/3 of the 120 damage against a 40hp arba.
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Yeah, 120 damage, every 6 seconds…only annoyance is that the armor on Elite War Elephants means it takes 6 shots instead of exactly 5 and a perfect 20 DPS. Oh well.
Bloodlines would have prevented it being done in 5 shots anyway.
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I’ve checked all the other civilizations, and no one has less than a 35% win rate against any civilization. Turks vs. Gurjaras is the most one-sided match.
Also interestingly, you would expect Turks to be very weak against Italians since Genoese Crossbowmen and Condottieri counter all Turk power units, but that’s not the case apparently.
Roman or Khmer Scorpions indeed work against elephants, but I’m highly doubtful that generic Scorpions can effectively counter elephants, especially on open maps. Not to mention, Turk Scorpions also lack +1 range.
And Gurjaras can halve Scorpions’ damage by putting Shrivamsha Riders in front of Elephant Archers.
It would be nice if Bombard Tower’s (3) and Cannon Galleon’s (3.5) projectile speeds matched Bombard Cannon’s (4). It’s just too easy to dodge Bombard Cannon projectiles.
Though it doesn’t matter for Shrivamsha Riders; they can even dodge cannonballs anyway.
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My take is Hand Cannon +4 vs Elephant, or Janissary +3/+4 vs Elephant. The reason of +4 is to negate the pierce armor from blacksmith
exactly, and against eles the jans work usually very well. And Turks have a lot of tools, especially in the mobile department to get value even if they can’t take the direct engagement.
Turks are actually one of the most versatile civs in the game, though they often only have one or two tools, they have usually high quality. Ofc they don’t have a good eco bonus that’s why they often can’t keep up with the top civs.
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Janissaries were good but also balanced when:
- Their range was 8.
- There were neither Elephant Archers nor Battle Elephants.
- Hand Cannoneers were weaker.
- There was no strong camel civilizations.
But now the situation is different. Hand Cannoneers were supposed to be better than Janissaries against infantry only, but this is not the case.
Janissaries need at least 10% more accuracy and +5 HP.
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