Jaguar Warriors are probably one of the least-used UU’s in the game for several reasons. Their niche is too specialized, they’re hard to mass, and they even struggle to be cost-effective against some infantry civs like Romans and Japanese (Samurai are cost-effective against Jaguars due to being cheaper, and Legionnaires with a Centurion can trade relatively evenly with them). Additionally, Aztec Champions have power-crept the Jaguar Warrior due to their cheaper cost and greater generalist use, with the Jaguar Warrior’s advantages not proving enough to warrant making them even in situations that call for them.
Even though they got 2 PA when the various infantry UU’s got buffed, Jaguars still remain an unpopular choice. As such, I think they could afford to receive another buff of some kind.
I can think of a few buffs that could be tried, though they obviously wouldn’t be used simultaneously.
Reduced training time. It’s hard to mass Jaguar Warriors, especially since Aztec Castles are the squishiest in the game. By the time you can get a decent enough number of them, it tends to be too late.
Increased base damage, but reduced bonus damage versus infantry. The idea would be to make the Jaguar Warrior better against non-infantry units without making them any stronger than they already are against infantry.
Damage resistance against infantry. This would be akin to how Shotel Warriors gain a resistance to cavalry-based damage via Royal Heirs, letting Jaguar Warriors do better against infantry without improving their time-to-kill. Having this damage resistance be only against infantry would not change their effectiveness against other unit types and would just reinforce their niche so they’re more effective at it.
Increased movement speed. Jaguar Warriors are kinda slow, making it hard to pick their fights and to keep up with Eagles. While they shouldn’t be as fast as Eagles, being a bit faster could make them more usable.
Of course, those are just some ideas on how they could be buffed. Maybe there are some other ones I haven’t thought of. But what would you do to buff Jaguar Warriors?
That’d be kinda cool, though I’d have it be that they only gain speed when near to enemy military units, not Villagers, Monks, or Trade Carts. However, I doubt the devs would go for it over just giving them an increase to their base speed due to the game’s spaghetti code.
Could still end up glitchy. Either way, it’d be kind of weird and could lead to unintended uses. Extra attack is fine on Monaspas because it doesn’t help them close the gap on ranged units (even if they’re already fast).
Not saying it’s a bad idea at all. I’m just not sure if the devs would go for it.
Yes, this should be simple enough. The speed-altering component is already present with the Caravanserai, and the unit quantity trigger is present with Monaspas, as you note.
But I also understand erring on the side of simplicity for changes that one may be on the fence about, as their ability to break things randomly is remarkable.
Not and unintended use, but an unintended edge case. Let’s imagine you have three rows of jags, closing in on some enemy infantry whose speed exceeds un-sped up jags, but is less than sped up jags. If that infantry turns and runs, just as the first line of jags has their speed buffed, then really only the first line of jags is giving chase as the further back slower jags won’t be able to catch up.
This idea isnt bad only if devs can handle pathing properly. Pathing will be more difficult with varying speed when jaguar shot down one by one under xbow.
Yeah that will buff JW indirectly. But I think both can be buffed separately. Aztecs have very good infantry in general. So buffing just militia line may not result in more JW use. Players may still stick to Champion.
There are more. The front row of JW despite having speed boost, may walk slowly because just one JW doesn’t have the speed boost as it is behind. Buff from enemy units will always result in unintended behaviour, bugs and glitches.
This is the first time I’m seeing this. Why do they need attack bonus vs cavalry? They are anti-infantry unit.
Jaguar Warrior are anti Infantry and Infantry is rarely used, therefor they are rarely useful.
The Fact that they struggle against some other Infantry units makes it even worse (they should not win against Samurai though, since they are countered by Samurai).
I think the best buff would be something that makes sense for Aztec culture.
Aztecs reworded warriors that captured enemies, capturing doesn’t exist so we can use kills instead.
Jaguar Warriors should get a bonus for every kill they make.
A simple one would be to give them a permanent +1 attack for every kill.
Alternative a more temporary effect would be to heal 10 HP for every kill, this way they could stay in a fight for longer.
Another cool idea that I don’t know if it’s possible is to give them a strong charged attack that only recharges whenever the make a kill (but not with the charged attack itself).
I will be honwst, the monaspa buff only makes sense if the unit ia used in amall numbers in many ocasions (which is why Monaspa being good in castle age is to me a really good thing)
For infantry units (and for monaspa ib late game) the Monaspa style bonus may as be just be there on the base stats
right now the melee pathing is bad like worse than before they fixed the ranged units pathing. wish they just go hard core on fixing bugs already and then onto new civs
Jaguars are bad because infantry in general is bad. Their fix is to actually make the Militia line better, that would be an incentive to make Jaguars more often.
He could also get some creative buffs though, like the killing spree idea is intersting. But just raw buffs to his stats i dont think is needed, it already do fine on that regard.
