I’ve tried playing as the Gurjaras in the past, but I struggled to take advantage of other units, besides their camels, chakrams, and shirvamsha riders. Also, what should I open with? Camel scouts take a while to train, and they cost more gold than any other unit in feudal age.
In feudal camel scouts arent really worth it imo. Just make archers or scouts and then make use of your counter units in castle age dependng on what the enemy makes. Tbh Shrivamsha riders are still probably OP as a raiding unit
1 Like
That sounds reasonable enough
Well, they’re certainly not OP enough to break the civ.
The civ ends up being balanced, but a raiding unit with a cheap cost, high resistance to archer units and super high speed is quite crazy
2 Likes
True, but they only have half the hp of a paladin with elite upgrade and bloodlines, no blast furnace, two less attack, and lower pierce armor, so that’s something. Basically just add seven extra ranged units to reduce their shield mechanic.
After the nerfs they’ve not been an easy civ to play. Either keep the sheep garrisoned, wall, archers and try to use the market for sub 20 castle age, xbow ballistics. Or take the sheep out one by one, do Shrivamshas till enemy hits castle age. After that its very difficult to decide. You can either do Kshatriya and all-in castle age. Or go imp get hand canoneers and heavy camel/elite shrivamshas. Which of those 2 is better is hard to judge.
Whatever happens don’t go for chakrams, just use skirms in castle age against pikes and hand canoneers against other infanfry. You’d need like 40 elite chakrams to be effective but not easy fo get that many.
Overall try not to play this civ, its complicated. Even pros have been doing terrible with this civ since their last nerf.
Not that cheap anymore. They were scary before purely due to Gurjara timing advantage in early castle age and cheap Kshatriyas later. Nowadays they’re just good in some situations. Not even close to being called OP.
1 Like
Shrivamsha Riders should have the same base speed as Light Cavalry, nothing more. Their speed is absolutely absurd and completely overpowered.
4 Likes
I have to ask, could you elaborate how Shrivamshas are SO MUCH BETTER than Hussars when it comes to raiding? Like in the late game, when you leave 3-4 Halbs in your eco to fend off raids, or make a Castle, in what situation does Shrivamsha do well where Hussar insta dies?
1 Like
Simple.
Go i the scenario editor and give the opponent 15 shrivamshas under A TC you fill with vils. Observe how long it takes the TC to shoot down the Shrivamshas without active targeting.
Do the same with light cav/hussar,
4 Likes
Shrivamsha riders are faster and have higher attack (so they kill vilagers in fewer hits). Hussars max out at 11 attack, which means they kill most vils in 4 hits (assuming blast furnace, which Gurjaras don’t have, so actually 5 for Gurjaras). Shrivamsha riders have 13 attack, which means they only need 4 hits. Against Bohemian 55hp vils, it’s 6 attacks vs 5. And the dodge mechanic works better in raiding situations (when you’re less likely to consistently receive arrow fire) than it does in a straight up fight. The ability to absorb a castle volley without taking any damage is pretty good. Shrivamshas do have less LOS though, and the gold cost makes them less expendable than hussars in the late-game. But if gold is not a concern, then they’re easily the better raiding unit.
2 Likes
Regular Shrivamsha is 8+2 = 10, vills have 1 melee armor, so that’s 5 hits, just like regular Hussar from Gurjaras.
Elite Shrivamsha is 11+2 = 13, it becomes 12 after the melee armor, again it’s 4 hits, just like a generic civ FU Hussar.
More importantly, this is a gold unit, so YES, it is better than a trash unit, but I don’t see it as OP like you guys claim.
2 Likes
It used to be before the double nerf. Not anymore.
Just tired of this outdated opinion. How exactly are they overpowered. They cost 70 food and 30 gold, rof not better than knights anymore, and just 75 hp with bloodlines. Unless the opponent is a complete newbie who’s playing with 0 walls and 0 military, they’ve much lower value for cost compared to knights in early game. Kshatriyas aren’t cheap anymore and with the mill bonus nerfed they aren’t going to get spammed around 30 mins. Which mean just like most of the unit lines, this unit has its timing window in the mid-game, that’s not OP, a minimum requirement. If the speed was any lower, it will join urumi swordsmen, siege towers in the list of unnecessary units. There’ll be absolutely no reason to make them instead of light cav.
Completely irrelevant. Scenario editors and practical games are different. Elite Steppe lancers, a bunch of cavalry unique units, eagles and many other gold units will and should survive longer against tc but they’re still not considered OP because they can’t be produced for long. And as far as late game raiding is concerned, you need to defend with army, you can’t depend on town centers for it. @Green4uu even explicitly mentions 3-4 halbs in the base to defend raids. Halbs kill Elite Shrivamshas in the same amount of time as generic hussars.
Or in other words both the units kill generic vills in 4 hits. Zero difference.
But gold is definitely a concern in the late game. They have high food cost, low base hp, subpar armor and no range, so neither easy to produce nor can fight melee units or targeted firing from a mass of crossbows. So not good in early game either. Which means they’re just a mid-game unit. There’s a timing window where they are effective and affordable. That’s called balanced, not OP.
Exactly. In fact its more than a double nerf. Compared to OG version, they have lesser rof, elites have lesser recharge rate, their gold cost is 50% higher and Kshatriyas costs 300 more food.
1 Like
There is a difference for Gurjaras, because they’re missing blast furnace. But not much difference between Shrivamsha riders and generic hussars (a few civilization bonuses do change the equation, like Poles hp regen, Bohemians sanctity-boosted villagers, and probably Spanish villagers with supremacy).
How much of a concern gold is is situation-based. In a gold-rush-style map, if you have a good amount of control on the gold, you want to be spending that gold (there’s usually plenty of gold if you can secure it - though knights would be likely better than Shrivamsha riders in that case). In a team game, access to trade means that you can afford the gold cost of the Shrivamsha riders even in the ultra-late game. And players usually still have gold through early-mid imp (it’s typically only late-imp when things go to a trash war). I’m not stating an opinion on whether they’re balanced or not (I don’t have that much experience with Shrivamsha riders).
When it comes to raiding trade carts (70hp, 0 armor):
Shrivamsha riders (13 attack, 6 hits, 8 damage overkill)
generic hussar (11 attack, 7 hits, 7 damage overkill)
Gurjara hussar (9 attack, 8 hits, 2 damage overkill)
Looking at these, I think that Shrivamsha riders would be good for raiding a trade line too (even before factoring in their extra mobility). In that situation, I think it would be hard to argue that Shrivamsha riders are worse than generic hussars.
Those are some niche matchups. He’s bringing this comparison because of someone’s comment about Shrivamsha speed being overpowered. His question to be elaborated goes like this “Given that you need a lot of economy to get Kshatriyas and spam Shrivamsha Riders, how are they overpowered compared to another civ’s hussar spam at that stage of the game?” And no in that case Shrivamsha Riders are NOT overpowered as they cost gold which is limited at that stage. They have better pop efficiency but have to be carefully used unlike hussar. Whether they kill Bohemian villager in 4 hits, 5 hits or 6 it doesn’t matter. A hussar might die but a new one will come and knock down the injured villager.
Exactly and again that’s a niche map. If you control all the gold on gold-rush or similar maps its over for the opponent against most civs, that doesn’t have anything to do with Shrivamsha riders. Most standard maps you have approx 14k gold from mines and you run out of this gold around 50 mins.
The comparison with hussar was not for team games. Gurjaras are largely irrelevant for team games, one of the least played TG civ (40th). And in a team game, so many units and combos are broken. Late game with trade, its almost impossible to kill a Mongol-Bohemian duo on closed or semi-closed maps. If its an open map its 100% always scouts-archers into knights-xbows and paladin-arbalesters from Franks/Persians/Magyars +Ethiopians/Mayans/Britons/Portugese. Against these civs and combos, Gurjaras don’t even stand a chance.
Yes but Paladin, a dozen other cav unique units would kill faster. Raiding trade is not something for which use such units, trade is mainly raided with ranged units. If its even the Gurjara player who’s going after the trade they might use chakram throwers or Elite elephant archers and just a few melee units just to kill defensive siege.
I wonder why it is though. They have excellent counter to both Knight-Crossbow from their stable. And ig you stick to just 1 unit in TG, their top tier Camel Rider is really impressive.
Indian civs outside of Hindustanis have a terrible pick rate. Old Indians were also extremely unpopular.
Imo they just seem too awkward to the normal AOE2 player
I like all Indian civs, but they are weird, and have quite a few problems
I don’t know why, but I’ve almost always been successful with Dravidians.
Hindustanis proved that Camel can be a fine alternative to Knight just like Eagle. And Gurjaras have S.Rider on top. I’m guessing their unique start is the reason behind such low play rate.
As for other two, no new comment. We all know.
The old Indians were also really unpopular so I think the reason Hindustanis are popular has more to do with the Ghulam. Also the other Indian civs are locked behind a DLC so that doesnt help either