This here nails the issue imo. Supposed niches for the above-mentioned civs (e.g. Paladin for Huns) don’t really work as intended because in TGs you never pick Huns for the Paladin possibility (unless you are playing a Bo11 or something”.
Maybe the Huns could also get a second unique unit as well in the future. It could be an unique [Cavalry Archer] unit for them. Giving them an unique archer unit would be nice, because one of the primary weapons of the Huns in warfare was the bow.
However, since very little is known about the Huns apparently the chances of finding a good name for this unit that is based on a certain group of warriors that were prestigious in the Hunnic army is most likely going to be very difficult or maybe even impossible to do (I haven’t found anything about this so far). And if that is the case, then a name has to probably be made up for this unit unfortunately.
But if anyone else have any ideas as for what their unique cavalry archer unit could be called based on history, then I’m all ears.
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The issue with this kind of data is that we never will have enough to call it finite.
Then we have to assess that the Huns main Bonus, the house bonus is a bonus that losses power with skill. Meaning at the highest level it basically becomes a pure eco bonus which isn’t that great actually.
Then we have to look at the drafting system and map selection. And whilst we have generally some maps where huns can be good (open/hybrid maps), a lot of the priority picks there (japanese, lithuanians, persians, malians, hindustanis, berbers…) have actually very good matchups specifically against huns. Cause Huns usually don’t like civs with good skirms, camels and towers. So ofc pros don’t like chosing a civ that has a disadavantage against a lot of the meta civs even if it would be perfectly suitable for that map.
Nevertheless Huns have won 5/7 of their matches so far in Hidden Cup. So whilst they aren’t chosen as frequent, they still perform well. In fact, Huns are the best performing civ of the non-meta picks that have more than 2 games played.
Finally we have to see, that CA in most cases have fallen comleteley out of meta. Which isn’t a pure Hun issue. It’s a general issue, that devs should address at some point.
And Huns without CA are just a basic Cavalry Civ with a kinda bad eco Bonus at this level of play. A lot of civs do this just way, way better. Civs like Franks, Persians, Magyars, Khmer… There is littel reason to pick Huns over these when you are just looking for a strong cavalry civ.
Pro scene and tourneys are just different and don’t always reflect the general status of civs in the meta. And Huns is a very good example for that. And it would be a big mistake to only look at the pro scene and ignore that Huns are the 2nd best performing civ on the mid to high elo ladder.
(BTW this all is way, way more complicated. I just didn’t wanted to write a master thesis about “why huns aren’t picked anymore despite still having good results”)
But I probably will write something at some point about this “power creep” nonsense that is currently “meta” in discussions about the game. Only because you don’t see your favorite civ not as much as you want to, it doesn’t mean other civs have been overbuffed. There can be a lot of reasons for that. And also, there is the perception issue. Huns haven’t seen a lot of play in DE on pro tourneys anyways. It’s not new other civs are picked over Huns a lot.
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For low elo players most civs can be very broken depending on their matches or what they see, but one thing is seeing and another understanding it.
Huns are below average and with an awful late game with current units and compositions from other over-buffed civis, also their economic bonus is not that great anymore, in fact the lack of houses is a big weakness in several maps, so their tec tree needs some adjustments honestly, i wouldn’t mind giving them onager or giving them a real UU, to me atheism should deny all conversions and it would be unique without breaking the civ or the game.
Perhaps give them the ability to upgrade Palisade Walls into Fortified Palisade Walls in Feudal Age, which would help their weakness that they cannot uses houses in their walls.
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