Heavy Scorpion does a lot to Mongol Hussar. The secondary shots do 4 damage instead of 2 since they miss the last armor. The main bolt does 13 damage.
Obviously you want Halberdier in there as well, but Heavy Scorpion is definitely a strong unit to push Mongols with before they get into their own siege. If they get Onager in their composition as well then you want BBC. They’ll never be able to approach your BBC with Mangudai with the army with the Scorpions around.
At this point though it’s definitely a micro war 11.
I also think the speed change is bigger than many see. Before this patch camels could not force a fight since Mangudai had the same speed as camels. Now camels are 0.05 faster which means they will eventually catch them which means at least some or more Mangudai losses than before.
Also now Hussar / Light Cav will catch them in half the time/distance than before because the speed difference was doubled from 0.05 to 0.1.
Also hit and run efficiency vs Knight line was halfed by reducing the speed difference from 0.1 to 0.05 which means mangudai has to run either double the distance before they can shoot without getting hit or they take more losses because the knight line catches up in half the time.
Also they can no longer get completely away from other Cav Archers and Camel Archers which also has some advantages since they can’t so easily get out of sight to reset a fight and attack somewhere else.
What this should mean is that now it is harder for Mongols to keep their Mangudai numbers up against cavalry because they will take more losses than before and this can lead to less strong Mangudai numbers snowballing if you can slowly decimate them instead of almost not being able to catch them at all.
But even with these changes Mangudai will still be the best unique unit thanks to its great DPS and bonus vs siege.
Look at it from the perspective of distance closed compared to distance traveled. Without husbandry Camels close at a rate of 0.05, which means the mangudai can move 28 tiles for every tile gained. Small maps are only 144 tiles long which means if you have a 5 tile gap to close the mangudai can still run to almost anywhere on the map (like toward a castle) before the camels catch up. Husbandry reduces the time over which this occurs but not the relative distances.
Similarly the hussar can catch up twice as fast but they were slow to catch already. So the mangudai can still cover half the map unless totally caught off guard.
I will admit it’s more punishing for mangudai that are caught off guard, which is good. But for 1v1s the map is just too small to take advantage of the speed difference. It might make a difference in team games.
That is a good point of which I was aware. They will still be able to return to the safety of their castle most of the time but they can’t take as many risks and good trades as before. If they only run and don’t stop to shoot they won’t deal damage.
And I think that is where the small nerf comes to play most - when the Mangudai try to kite with shoot-run-shoot-run. Once the Camels/Hussars/LC closed the gap (which happens a bit faster now) they will be able to hit the kiting Mangudai more often than before and that small 0.05 difference will lead to more Mangudai losses.
It is only a rather small nerf but it can make a difference.
Ngl I’m kind of fed up with the “it’s only about knight/xbows” rethoric. Do y’all only play 2v2s all the time? Or do you think if it’s not a knight/xbow/longsword/UU it’s not a unit?
Meanwhile WW have been buffed like 3 times to the point WW rush is the best Korean strat now, karambits have been almost completely restaured to their original stats, and a bunch of UUs got some small buffs too. Heck even those arambai and imp camels nerfs you complain about aren’t straight nerfs.
MAybe they weren’t straight nerfs.
But they hit the two civs quite heavily.
It’s interesting how changes like this can completely change the Gameplay of theses Civs. And I must say, I never saw imp camel or Arambai as overpowered. They had their powerspikes which made them great tools especially in Team games. And These nerfs hit both civs quite heavily.
And I think that most of the power just comes from the fact that they are meta breakers. Not because of them being unbalanced, but because people aren’t used to face them and don’t know how to react properly.
Interesting is to see that all of these units which probably cause this phenomenon are units with bonus vs buildings. I think that is the key to adjust them in basically all cases. Give people some more time to react to these threats and we are fine.
But nerfing the unit in general just lead to this weird on/off switch of people realising “arambai complete trash now” and completely taking away an identity from a very interesting uncommon civ.
And I hope they will do the right thing and reduce war wagons bous dmg vs buildings, as this early pushing power tricks players now to engage to early against them when not having the mass to get good trades. If the push is slowed down a bit, it will be much easier to deal with them and opens up more counter strats like counter raids etc.
The unit isn’t overpowered, it’s just uncommon and needs a lot of patience to deal with them now. And Koreans heavily rely on them, it’s their Identity, pretty much as the arambai is for burmese.
Btw, I think the mangudai nerf is well targeted. Mangudai was basically a free win against civs lacking good mobility. It doesn’t take away everything what makes them the best unit in the game, and that’s fine. There has to be a best unit.
I also don’t like how they interact with siege. Especially rams. But I think the Speed nerf was more important as this is the factor what makes them broken in certain matchups.
Its not “only about knights/xbows” rhetoric. I just concerned about recent patch trend of nerfing good UUs. Then we slowly go direction of nerfing UU and some unconventional strategy and knight/Archer meta more intensified.
WW buff is not a direct one. Just side effect of getting free archer armor upgrade. Other UU change was tiny and only thing significantly buffed was Karambit warrior. And imperial camel nerf was straight targeted to reduce Melee Armor and Burmese winrate plunged after nerf. (Their nerf in Castle age was so huge.)
there is a difference between nerfing a good unit and nerfing something that is a problem. people literally still make jokes about mangudai being uncounterable for a reason.
because those units were problematic. should indians and burmese get more compensation? absolutely - but lets not pretend that these forums and others weren’t full of people complaining about arambai and camels and leitis and etc.
Not my fault if Burmese player keep going double castle arambai as if nothing happened lol
Yup people just need to learn how to play without buildings, what a bunch of lazy meta slaves smh.
Now let’s be real the counters to arambai and imp camels aren’t especially out of the box: the first one is countered by archers, the second one is countered by halbs. And that’s why the problem wasn’t with 1v1s. The problem is that in TG, against arambai, everyone has to go xbows, while the Burmese’s teammates are free to do whatever they want. Against imp camels, archers didn’t counter imp camels well enough, and making halbs leaves you open to the archer player, but failing to catch up to imp camels means they can run to the pocket’s base and nuke it.
That’s on people for overreacting. Arambai still slaughter cav and infantry and now if you catch an archer army out of position you will kill them faster than before. You can’t just use arambai as siege weapons.
Well first, they only took the anti-building part, and “uncommon” is pretty debatable when Mongols, Spanish and Korean revolve around a fast ranged UU too.
Increasing their wood cost so that their cost is close from the pre-DE value could work too ig.