Mix them in with normal archers and pretend their unit description says “Cavalry resistant archery unit.” instead of “Anti cavalry archery unit.” That being said, Genoese Crossbowman are much better against archer cavalry than melee cavalry.
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That’s because CA have less HP and PA than the paladin.
At that point it’s not worth the investment in castles and elite, it’s better to keep training xbows.
It is different because GC are range units which is already better as they counter infantry too.
Yes, they are. They deal like 3x the damage of a normal archer (Arbalester) to cavalry units.
Outnumbering is no argument - then don’t get outnumbered or at least you should have some other units avaliable to fill the gaps in your army. Basically everything in this game loses if it’s outnumbered too much. Even Huskarls against archers.
GC are a slow transition (we can surely argue about reducing their training time) unit. It’s not that bad though, because they totally destroy cavalry if you compare it to what you would normally expect from archers. Archers are meant to deal damage. GC excel at that vs cavalry. Archers (even GC) are not meant to take on cavalry 1v1. They always rely on positioning/protection - that’s why they have range.
That’s simply wrong. Even non Elite GC do more than 2x damage compared to Arbalesters against cavalry. If the opponent relies on cavalry just get as many as you can and when you have enough upgrade them to Elite, otherwise don’t.
They can be decent… but they lack any bonus vs any infantry (even skirms have bonus vs pikes), they have less range than arbs (so less shots) and when you compare it with other UU they have less base attack (6 instead of 7).
So while they can micro down infantry, they aren’t for sure a counter to it, in fact they are good vs cavalry only because of their bonus damage vs it.
Yeah, huskarls can take 70 arrows, good luck on outnumber them with archers.
It when the GC is the only good counter to cavalry that italians have, and when it’s trained at a CASTLE (650s and 200 seconds of building time) with 4/6s more then all other archer UU, when the enemy can simply spam stables.
If I train too many different units then I have to spend a fortune on upgrades. And the elite GC is already expensive enough.
No argument about that, I completely agree, and I like the concept of the unit, fantastic vs cavalry, bad vs anything else, but right now it doesn’t work correctly.
That’s exactly why they need more numbers than the cavalry, not as much as you would need in xbows, but still…
But at that point, since even non-Elite GC still cost more and need castles, at that point is just better to spam ranges and arbs.
Again: No, that’s wrong. Every single Arbalester you can replace with a non Elite GC will make your army better against cav. Therefore it is clearly not better to just spam ranges, even if you only have 1 castle. ANd if the game goes long enough you might be able to do a full transition at some point.
Other than that I think our views are actually not that different. I do agree that a reduction in training time for GC would be good - I just think they still have their place, even if they don’t get it.
More numbers or a favourable situations - like sitting under your castle and protecting a treb, which is shooting at the enemy. There even a few GC can make a big difference.
You just go for the normal archer line, which has the same upgrades and then you starting mixing in GC vs cav. That works perfectly fine.
As I said, reducing the training time a bit would probably be a good idea. But it’s still not that case that they are useless if you cant get 40 of them. Even 5-10 is a nice addition to your bulk of xbows vs cav.
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I would definitely agree on the stengh of GC vs cavalry once you have the numbers. GCs do not need a stats buff (or maybe they could benefit from a general archer buff for Italians, but is is a need of the civ, not a need of the unit).
GCs need however a huge reduction of the TT. Being a counter unit weaker than arbalests vs everything except cavalry, GCs should have a very small TT otherwise it is simply a bad unit design.
Italians are the only civ missing halabs/buffed pikes/camels. A counter unit is something you want to train fast. The castle requirements is already a huge limitation for a unit requiring a critical mass, the addition of a terrible TT comparable to a cataphract simply makes the unit not viable, despite its good theoretical stats.
I would really say that a GC should be trained much faster than other archer UUs since it is not a stronger arbalest, it is a counter, it is a unit which you do not want unless a specific situation. This is not the case of rattans and other archer UUs, which are simply stronger than arbs. The shortest TT would make sense to me, considering also that for instance ckns are cheaper and much much stronger, and also from a way superior civ. I think that everyone agrees that, no matter the TT of a buffed GC, Chinese and ckns will remain extremely superior to italians on land. By a huge margin close to a civ-win.
It seems to me that Italians are designed to have weaker rage power than viets, Ethiopians, britons, and chinese, traded with a better response vs cavalry. In practice, in addition to better archers and better eco, all these civs are much better vs cavalry having halabs and/or camels.
Still, I see that almost everyone in the community agrees that GC needs a huge TT buff, but no stat buffs, to really perform its intended role.
It might even be reasonable to give GC a stat decrease, whilst massively reducing TT. Looking back at my Italians games vs cav, I think I should have trained pikemen. If that’s not supposed to be necessary, the TT needs to be tiny, but then that means that GC need to be countered even harder than currently by Skirm/Arb/onager.
Maybe Shoteleske GC could be ok if it had 1 fewer base damage?
Again, it’s just an aesthetic choice whether Its should have to rely in pikemen in Castle, and the rest flows from there.
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I agree with the General Sentiment of your Post, however i would rather make the gc a better arbalest. A squishy Ranged unit isnt really suited as an emergency counter.
Compared that to the Camel, which IS a better emergency counter to Cavalry as they tie them Up in Battle Long enough to Pump Out more camels and Pikes and eventually gain the upper hand. Archers are i feel better used as Offensive than Defensive Units.
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This is true in general, especially considering how bad italians are. However, we already have archer UUs that are an arb with extra range, mobility, armor, attack… there is no place for another better arb. It would make sense to me a general buff for Italian archers to help them in the early stages, like +1 attack or +1PA. Ask @DoctBaghi for this.
But if you make the GC trained faster than ckns, it may fulfill its real role. But it has to a very small TT
That would be a reasonable design. Much better than the current one. However you should buff the cav bonus damage by 1 if you reduce the attack by one.
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You could also make GC tankier, same range, but with lower speed. I think that niche is still open.
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I think this is what we need. Also, since Italians need something for early stages, a buff like +1PA may affect also GC, but this is less important for GC imo (it is still very important for Italians).
Was about to suggest the Same. Maybe increase its Cost depending in the Stat boost. Still i would Cut Off a few Seconds from their TT like3 and 5 for Elite.
In an emergency Defense you would want to Garrison them in the Castle that Just created them anyway, so their Bonus damage wouldn’t come into Play anyway.
Considering that people already complains about how GC trash paladins in team games (and I just read that there are also people that dislike the IC for the same reason) I think that we shouldn’t lower it too much.
Looking at other archer UU, in castle age GC should take 16s, maybe 18s top (between longbows and rattan).
In imp instead, after the elite and conscription, considering that CKN takes 8s (but italians aren’t that dependent on their UU like chinese ara) the GC should take between 10 and 12s.
Reducing the elite upgrade too, and by doing so easing their transition into it, would hurt, but it’s secondary compared to the reduction of TT.
I personally wouldn’t dislike either a serious buff on their stats, like +1 attack, +1PA and a bit more HP, that would make them a more historically accurate version of them (a tanky frontline archer), so even if you gave less of them (with the same TT) they would be more durable and pop efficient.
Though, that way it would be a pain in the *** to balance, I personally prefer the reduction of TT, and then eventually the reduction of the elite upgrade.
A massive reduction of the TT is needed to fulfill the intended role.
Imo a counter unit should have a lower TT than a go-to one, like cnk. If you play chinese you always try to maintain a good ckn mass, while Italians need that mass only vs cavalry. So they need a faster response, a way to have the mass fast.
Still other changes can be applied to make it better (considering the high cost) but probably these changes should come for the italian archer line in general…
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I agree, in fact I proposed to lower the TT in castle from 22s to 16s, and in imp from 14s to 12s.
It’s not a small buff.
As for the elite, again this is secondary, but maybe 150/200 food/gold less could help.
It is literally in their description:
‘strong vs cavs and infantry’
This is due to their melee armor and more hp.
It doesn’t automatically mean that it’s correct…
I’m not saying that they do bad vs infantry, but they are far from being on the level of other archers.
I mean, they struggle against dismounted konniks.
Those helps more vs cavalry than infantry, but I give you that, you are right about it.
Still, if I’m against an infantry civ, I’ll never go for the GC.