Konniks are better than Paladin at beating counter-cavalry units, but Paladin beats Konnik.
The advantage of Konnik over Paladin is that you need 2 different units to properly counter, but Paladin is just more cost-efficient.
Konniks are strategically better, but Paladins are more efficient.
Magyars would be a very different civ without paladin. Thatās half the core of the civ.
And even if you could make the argument that Cataphracts, Leitis and Tarkans can serve a similar role as paladin in a post imp setting, it would still be a massive nerfs to these civs.
Teching into paladin is a very streamlined process when you are playing as pocket, while transitioning into your UU is a lot slower and taxing on your economy. You have to gradually stop knight productions, heavily go to stone, get castles up and start unit production. In the same time window a paladin will have twice the numbers and full momentum.
Magyars have a Trash UU, discounted Hussars with Free Attack Upgrades, and a Cav Archer that can compete with the Tuirks.
They do not need Paladin. Specially with a Trash UU.
Hence my argument that Paladin is too much of a crutch, too overly-efficient, and a bad element in the game.
Because the meaning of the expensive paladin upgrade would be very insignificant if you had researched stirrups already, but if you would choose to neglect it cause you werenāt making konniks anyway, why should this upgrade even affect cavaliers in the first place?
It should only be as it was before, where stirrups didnāt affect knight-line at all and paladin was available. Or, it should affect them like it does now, but not having paladin available.
Well you choose the bulk and armor of the Paladin
Of course you do. But why did you waste on stirrups in-between? The point is, you are first paying for stirrups, then you go from stirrups cavaliers to no-stirrups paladins. With the same paladin upgrade tech cost as everyone else, but with much less value to the upgrade.
It is a generic unit, to a unit-line that almost every civ has access to, so making the last upgrade even more pristine than it already is in said unit-line is just bad design imo.
Also I fail to see how this is making the game more balanced either.
I donāt see how having a trash UU has to do with anything.
Paladins are a team game unit. Team games donāt really care about gold so having a trash UU doesnāt bring much to the table.
If you think having a trash UU makes up for not having paladin, you donāt understand at all in which niche these two units are used. Because there is almost 0 overlap.
Yeah, Magyars have strong CA. But they also have bad siege, no gunpowder, mediocre infantry, terrible monks. They need paladins so that they donāt become literally a one trick poney in imp.
well it would allow their knights and cavaliers to snowball in the 15-20 minute window between stirrups and Paladins
Same logic as Imperial Camel. The Knight line already has an Imp Age upgrade: the Cavalier.
The same way Imp Camels are only available to Indians, while al other Camel focused civs make do with Heavy Camels; Paladin should have been only the Franks unique upgrade to Cavalier.
But they arenāt comparable. Imperial camel is a civ specific unit. The paladin is not. Forget the names and focus on what they were designed for. Paladin is designed to be a generic high-tier upgrade to knight-line. Imperial camel is designed to be an exclusive, civ-specific upgrage to camel-line.
Also first you said 5 civs should get paladin, now itās down to one. Make your mind. >:o
It still donāt make sense though. Already gave the 2 only options that are sensible.
Edit: Iāll elaborate more. When you upgrade a unit, it has to be apparent as to what it does to your units. If an upgrade says itāll do something to your units, but later on it doesnāt anymore due to another upgrade conflicting with it, it is counter-intuitive. And behaviour like this is completely unnecessary in a game like AoE2.
I would give to 5, maybe 7 civs maximum.
But if you know AoE2, it was originally supposed to be the Franks UU.
Because Imp Camel is restricted to a single civ, Paladin could also be more restricted than it currently is.
Right now, you are just twisting my words. I never said only one civ should get Paladin.
I know about AOE 2, that in its first version (AOK) 5 out of 13 civilizations had paladins and franks UU was and is something entirely different. And you should stop redesigning 20 years old game.
I was taking that as your words. Never knew they actually intended that in development lol. However as things are, it is a generic unit right now so whatever their original intention was 20 years ago is buried and has no merit in current discussion no longer.
Could, yes. Anything can and could be done.
Is it necessary? No. Thereās no reason to. Unless you think about itās name too much. In this game paladin is just an acronym to highest-tier cavalry. So, donāt overthink it.
I am not trying to. I would just like for Paladin to be a more restricted upgrade, so it stops being so dominant, and Cavalry civs do not become just Knight civs.
Huns have Tarkan, Magyars have Magyar Huzsar, Byzantines have Cataphract, Lithuanians have Leitis, and Celts do not even need Paladin to begin with.
Goths havbe been changed a lot, and they are a 20 year old mainstay of the game.
Goths were not redesigned, they were updated. At least 5 Paladin civs should be updated into losing Paladin, in a similar fashion.
Yes, it is an overly-efficient unit that is holding a lot of UUs down.
Iāve changed my mind since. If no paladin, maybe either:
cheaper siege workshop techs
stirrups to apply to dismounted konnik
free siege engineers?
blacksmith techs cost -30% less?
Not all of those ideas should be implemented but at least 1 or 2 of those could help bulgarians alot in areas they struggle most. While still retaining their civ identity
Bulgarians are already strong as it is. They are an average civ, and average civs do not need anything in terms of balance.
Why no paladin? There is only one dude in here who is strictly against giving bulgarians paladins. Other people are searching for compromises.