I think using arson to buff the tarkan is clunky, but generally I have no issue with buffing the Tarkan building bonus damage. It’s quibbling on my part really.
Steppe Lancer……as simply as possible, the steppe lancer is based on later light cavalry, first pioneered by gokturks.
That being said Huns have access to paladins.
I’m undecided whether Huns should get elite steppe lancer or not, but I think they should have at least regular steppe lancer.
I think from a historicity standpoint, Turks, Magyars, and bulgarians should get just the regular steppe lancer.
I’m a little concerned if you extended scoutline boni for turks and magyars to steppe lancers, then their scout line seems less impressive by comparison. SL is really good for breaking palisades. I think turks and magyar can get vanilla SL, break into palisades, and let their scouts do the heavy lifting. But mongol hp bonus applies to both so maybe it’s fine.
I do think however giving Bulgarians elite steppe lancer would differentiate them from the other semi-nomadic civs, namely Turks and Magyars who have top notch CA, where as Bulgarians have ok CA. Them getting top notch steppe lancers would be interesting. That and you could try playing with double melee comp of THS w bagains and SL W stirrups in the back. I find it a shame you mostly have to pick one UT or the other to benefit from. Even if you use hussar to raid and THS as a frontline for some comp, attack speed does little when chasing down vills. You aren’t getting in more attacks, cause the vill runs away, so the reload time doesn’t mean nearly as much.
I get that from Kenneth Harl’s Great Course, “The Barbarian Empires of the Steppes”. Huns would have had cavalry that filled a similar role, but as far as I can tell the closest historical correlate to the steppe lancer that I’m aware of was pioneered by the gokturks.
Regardless tho, in the same way that even tho Huns predate the historical correlate of the Paladin it’s fine cause they’d have employed heavy cavalry, so too i think it’s ok they get the steppe lancer as they’d have employed cavalry that filled a similar role to the historical correlate to the steppe lancer.
I brought it up cause sometimes people get really hung up on “but a unit has this name, ergo…”. Huns have Paladins, I’m fine with that. Huns should have steppe lancers too. Sorry if I said all that confusingly before.
in the case of mongol SL, I think the problem is the SL gets two very important buffs.
Mongol uptime is so fast, that SL are just good regardless.
The unit that best counters Steppe Lancers is the x-bow due to SL low pierce armor (1 vs LC and Knight 2). however, if you run the numbers mongol 30% hp is about the same, slightly better if I recall correctly, than +1 PA. Also that hp is pretty good for tanking a mangonel shot.
I don’t claim to know how much exactly each contributes to the “OP-ness” of mongol SL, but Huns wouldn’t have either of these advantages.
From who though? None of the antiquity-era civs have paladin. Not to mention that historically, super heavy cavalry was basically restricted to Persia and the Roman Empires.
Sometimes I feel like Huns were just designed purely for gameplay, with not much work actually going in to make them thematically appropriate.
+1PA is still better against Xbow and CA. But yeah, +30% HP is indeed problematic.
I hope not. Thing is other 2 SL civs have less than average Castle Age Time (Can’t check currently as aoestats.io is not loading the age up time). But Huns very likely have faster than average Castle age up time. So there is always some risk.
Maybe I’m thinking tc fire. It’s been a while since I ran the numbers. It also depends on upgrades. Regardless it mitigates the primary weakness of the steppe lancer, namely pierce damage.
I honestly don’t mind if the huns get both regular and elite steppe lancer and the bonus of cheaper cav archer also applied to steppe lancer. However, they should lose access to the entire knight line to balance this out. It’s kinda weird and wrong that they have paladins, it makes no sense.
Also, if this is the case, then I guess they will also have to nerf the stable bonus down to 10% like Briton with archery range because being cheaper + 20% faster to train is kinda broken in castle age.
Indeed, there is nothing to suggest they were a heavy cav civ. When comparing with the Persians at the time or what the Eastern Romans had to counter the Persian cavalry…
If we rework the Huns that deeply, I’d add something to spice up the tarkans : with the new unit ability of having an effect radius on others (such as the roman centurion), have them debuff nearby enemy and neutral units. -20% attack speed for example within a 4 tiles radius (not cumulative with multiple tarkans of course). This would make the tarkan more useful than just a raiding unit, would balance the loss in raw power and tankiness that the paladins supplied, and play into the terrifying nature of the Huns who definitely punched above their weight when it comes to cultural impact.
For example their role in the Ring of the Nibelungen (nearly wiping out the Burgundians) or more recently, being a singificant inspiration behind Sauron in The Lord of the Rings (I’ve seen the theory the Mongols inspired Mordor but the Huns seem to fit even better).
TC and Xbow has same base attack. As the number of villagers can vary, there is no clear winner between +1PA and +30%HP. Either way, +30% is huge. SL is trained faster than xbow and doesn’t need a unit upgrade.
Tarkans either need a slight increase to their building bonus (by like +3) to offset how good masonry/architecture/castles are vs their bonuses,
Or to change their bonus from building to standard building to ignore masonry/architecture/castle armor completely, but reduce the numbers slightly to balance it.
The Sarmatians deployed heavy cavalry and were part of the Hunnic confederation. That’s what the Paladins are meant to represent. New models for certain unit lines is needed.
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