Idea for Tarkans

It seems like Huns are becoming more popular again, maybe from the Cav Archer buffs. However I almost never see Tarkans used. I’m guessing this is because they are worse than knights for a similar cost.

They are supposed to excel at destroying buildings (but honestly are not that great at this). Their reputation for raiding and pillaging just does not hold true within game mechanics. So what if they had something like Keshik’s gold generation, but only when they damage buildings (excluding walls/gates). Literally looting as they destroy, and making them significantly cheaper than knights if used correctly. The amount of gold would need to be tuned for balance, but I’m sure there exists an acceptable number.

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Tarkans have a very specific time window where they have a big impact. If you’re going CA already, you practically don’t have any time to utilize said time window, as that’s the same window where your CA gets the last few upgrades and immediately becomes a problem long term.

Tarkans compete with Knights, sure, but really they compete with CA moreso as the Tarkan (elite or otherwise) has a much earlier window for efficacy than the Paladin, and that has much to do with the quicker creation time, the lower cost, and the much faster upgrade tree. That timeframe is when you need to be upgrading your CA mass if you have them, and as such the realistic damage potential of Tarkan has already passed.

At normal buildings maybe. But anything with stone gets wrecked. They also Excell vs archers

Besides. I remember viper going tarkans recently.

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Remove Marauders from the game, make the Tarkan a stable unit starting from Castle Age, kind of like the Longboat in Viking docks. Maybe allow them to be upgraded right there too. It won’t guarantee their mass use, but at least you’ll see them being mixed up with Knights.

This will not cause players to mix knights and Tarkans. Tarkans and Knights are both strictly superior in their own specific roles, and Hun players will simply have the luxury of using the better unit in any matchup without the associated hurdle to unlocking the Tarkan.

I don’t see a justification for such an outsized buff for Huns against Archer civs. The unit does significantly more damage than an LS against buildings even after Arson.

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It needs a better description then, because although it has a high pierce armor, most people don’t realize at first. The ingame description doesn’t tell the player anything about then being good against archers, so they often aren’t used in this role, at least not at lower level of play.

It’s a completely different unit against ranged units, and on the flipside, it’s also a completely different unit against melee units. Two less attack, one less melee armor, a slower attack rate, Pikes do pretty well against knights and utterly obliterate Tarkans, Camels slaughter Tarkans, Knights beat Tarkans handedly, but on the flipside, ranged units do absolute diddly to Tarkans.

There’s a very, very good reason why Tarkans are locked behind a tech, and that’s the very good reason.

What if Tarkans have the special effect of leave building torching? Like a trickle of damage stacking up to 10 hits. So you could raid the enemy base, give som hits to several buildings and retreat, like a harass strategy.
For example: 1st hit leaves a torching damage of 1 hp/sec, 2nd hits stacks +1 hp/sec, and so on up to 10 hp/sec (stackable in total hits, not for each tarkan)
Effect stops when you start repairing the building

Why do Tarkans, let alone huns, need buffs?

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Maybe not, but could make them more interesting or fun to use

Let’s buff every boring unique unit in the game then

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Add a mechanic is not necessarily a buff… Anyways, just ideas, not requests, so…

Tarkans are not particularly good against archers. They have 1 more Pierce Armor (intended to help them survive building fire), but they have 2 less attack than knights and attack slower.

I’ll do some more testing later today to get exact numbers, but IIRC Tarkans bring down castles slower than a lot of infantry units.

A buff, is anything that improves their performance or usability. This improves their performance.

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It depends on the age. Strictly speaking you don’t want to use any non-siege unit against castles because they all do pretty poorly, but suffice to say, Masonry/Architecture determines which is better against castles. It’s not cut and dry. Masonry/Architecture doesn’t affect the infantry tree’s innate bonus to buildings at all but it adversely affects most (if not all) other anti-building bonuses.

That is logic imo. They have more HP, PA and movility than any infantry…

A castle age tarkan has 5 pierce armor fully upgraded. Tbis means crossbows do 2 damage a shot and require 60 shots (50% more then a knight) to kill.

Imperial age tarkans have 8 pierce armor fully upgraded. This means arbalests do 2 damage a shot and require 85 shots to kill (almost 50% more then paladins and over twice what a cavalier can tank).

They also cost less and train faster.

In what world is that “not particularly good against archers”.

We literally just saw viper make them to counter archers in empire wars

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It’s a lot better at surviving, but surviving =/= killing.

It does = killing when it’s a straight-up fight, and Tarkans are clearly exceptional against archers generally, but against a supplemental army which has archers It’ll do more poorly against the melee units, which will diminish slightly it’s clear advantage.

You’re describing their ability to survive archers, not to kill them. That’s important, but so is their damage and attack rate.

I guess I could also be more clear. They’re certainly not an anti-archer unit like Huskarls, Tarkans are clearly intended to be anti-building.

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Agreed. Being resistant to arrow fire generally has something to do with having very high survivability against archers as a feature but definitely has it’s roots in surviving long periods during raids against fortifications.