Here’s a thought, chew on it for a bit and then immediately tell me it’s terrible, because I’m literally just throwing it in because I want to:
Change Sultans from making gold gather faster into something big, dumb, and ridiculous. A one-time tech that turns all your Cavalry Archers you have into Elephant Archers instantly. If you have Heavy Cavalry Archers, they turn into Elite Elephant Archers. Instant dismount the horse and mount the Elephant. Suddenly, massive power spike that warrants the investment into, and warrants the massing of, Cavalry Archers.
Make it as expensive as Torsion Engines or Druzhina, and watch the world burn.
I do not know anything about balance. But buffing elephant archers is a good idea. A unique tech to make them buildable in archery ranges is also a good idea. As there are no techs which make an archer unique unit buildable at the archery range.
The EA are already a strong unit, their main problem is their prohibitive cost, allowing them to garrison archers wouldn’t help, because you would also have to train and upgrade archers.
If you want to buff the EA, just give them +1 range, so that the Indians would have a unit with the same range of the arbs (that the Indians lack).
I have an idea, perhaps giving HCA for free to Indians, which would be a great buff, and allow them an early Imp power boost, that would at least allow them to do some damage before the enemy could mass Huskarls/Eagles, and level the playing field.
Do you really want to give the Indians such upgrade for free? I mean with their cheap vills they have a huge booming potential, maybe it’s a bit too much…
I suggested that the HCA upgrade could be 50% cheaper, together with PA.
This way you bring the upgrade about at the cost of the arb one, compensating a bit for the lack of the unit, but also buffing the civ in general (a CA is stronger than an arbs).
I mean, at least this way they should still spend time and some resources researching it, which is on about the level of adding arb to their tech tree (but with a stronger unit in the end).
They could also lower a bit the IC upgrade, since they are weaker now…
A more accessible HCA with IC and hussars, or even EA and HC sometimes could work.
I have to say, ALL of the suggestions i have read here are all far FAAAAR better than leaving the Indians as they are … helpless and essentially buried below the ground.
It is one of the very few Cav Archer related bonii available that no civ uses.
HCAs are not really that strong anymore, anyway, since all civs have Elite Skirms except the Turks, which have Anti-Archer Free Hussars now; and teh modern pathfinding made Skirms much better against Archers than they ever were.
Free HCA would be a strong powerspike for early Imp, but almost inconsequential for late Imp, for example.
Arbs are cheaper to upgrade and train. I would much rather a civ have Arbalests, than HCAs, they are just a much better, more efficient unit.
That’s why I proposed 50% cheaper HCA upgrade, it would cost the same resources of the arbs upgrade (a bit heavier on food, a bit cheaper on gold).
As for the unit cost, well they are also a more powerful one, so it’s balanced.
There could be other 50% cheaper upgrades along the HCA, like PA and hussars, and I think that it’s actually better than simply give them a free upgrade.
I actually disagree here. Arbs have 1 less Attack but a +1 damage bonus vs Spearman and 1 more Range and LOS than HCA do. The frame delay on HCA is also double that of the Arbalest, and you can fit more Arbs in a tight spot than HCas, which means a much greater focus fire potential.
With PA HCA have more bonus vs pikes, and they have +1 base atk, more speed, HP and armor. It’s not always the best over the arb I agree, but the higher cost it’s justified.
Also, in castle age aren’t good because of their frame delay, but they are powerful in imp when you patrol them, especially if you have another mobile unit that can kill paladins.
The idea is to give them a solution for imp, not for castle age…
Indians with one of the highest winning rate at 1650 is just reading this topic, saying pls bro do you want me to get 70% win rate, they don’t need more buffs, they have a HUGE economic bonus, champion and HC and full skirm plus bbc and an UU with 9 pierce armor, they don’t struggle at all vs most army compositions.
The imperial camel nerf didn’t change anything they are still dominating all the team games in +2500 level so…
Elephant archers should hit like a truck. So instead of 6 / 7 (elite) attack, they should have 7 / 9 (elite) attack. This means 13 attack on imp with full upgrades, which is still only 6 to fully upgraded Paladin. Possibly could give even 1 more attack in exchance for some HP
I would instead buff their range by 1. They have the same 4 base range if the CA (since they technically CA) but they are slower, so they lack that versatility. Also, indians lack arbs, so EA could compensate for that.
I’d love to see that one. I also want Shatagni affects them as well. So you have 9 range EA in imp.
The biggest problem with EA is its food cost. Camel+EA is not easy at all to go for in even with Indians boom. And they are slow too, even slower than BE (which does not makes sense to me tbh). I think their speed should also be increased from 0.8 to 0.9, same speed as swordsman line.