Well, lately, they can’t. Spanish has fallen out of favor over the last year, you rarely ever see them in competitive play.
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Well my point was only that one doesnt immediately die or fall so far behind that the game is uncompetitive.
Not saying the whole early GC thing is optimal or even good at a high level, only that it is currently feasible enough and theoretically good enough that it shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.
Granted you need to do some arithmetic and memorization to get your production ratios right and practice for 30m on mixed formation micro (mostly with pikes, skirms are pretty standard).
Anyway the whole “too hard to mass” just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me after trying out mixed formations. You realize that GC perform super well in a mixed blob.
Spanish builds their castles faster at least, and conqs are way better than GC.
Also, trading cost efficiently is good, but you are on the defensive usually at that point, until you can have trebs or BBC. You cannot raid or force engagements with the GC and all you opponent have to do is to use his faster units to outflank and raid you, or add skirms/siege.
If what I’m doing has the only purpose is setting me up for a late game fight, then it’s just better to mass GC later, and have a more useful unit in castle age.
And I’ll never discourage a frank, magyar or huns player from using cavalry or CA with italians.
I’m not. I said that the GC are viable if massed in the late game, or gradually replacing/adding an already big core of arbs, but I never said that you should go pure GC.
By getting map control, raiding him and denying engagements, until it can treb down their precious castles. Yes, italians cover this by aging up a bit faster, and accessing trebs and BBC, but they are still vulnerable before imp.
Ok but there are 2 things:
- While skirms aren’t a problem, GC still are. You need to have a good number of them among your skirms, otherwise knights produced at a stables can still easily outnumber you and get the jump on you units if you aren’t under the castle/TC.
- You are still ceding map control. You can really pressure your opponent, the cavalry will always outmanouver you, and if you pressure the base, he can defend with manganels while the cavalry counter attack your base.
Yeah I can do split micro, and GC can even take a direct hit, but still GC with less range aren’t really the best units to have there in the open (with less range and slow movement, they can’t really damage the enemy eco much), and I can’t train them fast enough to answer to a cav counter attackcin my base (nor reinforce them), that’s why I usually do this strategy only if I’m fully walled.
Xbows instead have way more advantages, they can be massed in feudal, and I can train them fast whenever I need, and they give you more map control (more numbers and more range).
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that italians needs an early eco bonus, nor that the GC needs a buff (even the reduction of the elite cost it’s not that necessary), but still, I can’t see the GC as a viable strategy in the early to mid castle age.
Only if I’m fully walled, or I got some kind of advantage in the early game (like a lame or a rush with some vills killed) I would feel confident enough to do it. Or, I train T+them from a defensive castle just as a mean to boost up my xbows number in castle age (after grabbing pavise), but as soon as I reach imp, I have to decide with which one stick, at least for the moment, since it’s expensive to upgrade both.
And also, instead of skirms, I would pair them with LC or knights. I know that those are a lot of upgrades, but that’s actually is a combo that cover each other weaknesses, give me a bit of map control, and in imp I can go hussars.
Otherwise, I prefer go xbows, getting a castle just for pavise, and mass xbows with early ballistics. Then if necessary add GC and BBC in imp (that’s another reason why, if there have to be another buff of the GC, an elite cost reduction makes more sense).
I saw the live, so I don’t know if it’s in the video, but I remember that he said that he can’t mass GC fast enough to kill the magyars CA+MH, because the MH can simply be throw in the way of the GC at a super cheap cost, while the magyar CA have actually more range than the GC, and are faster too obviously.
If he had a big ball, it would have been able to counter them, but just few GC would have been a waste of resources, since the enemy could have picked them off in small groups.
Just try it out yourself. It feels weird at first because you feel so pressured in early castle but as long as you take a good first fight you’ll notice that the eco the enemy has been booming doesn’t matter as much as you’d think it would. The group of GC + skirms or GC + pikes or GC + xbow you’ve been babysitting just trades so cost effectively except against siege, which you can still outrun. If they make siege there’s redemption monks and cavalry with FU potential come imp. The only tricks are:
- choosing the right complementary unit. 1 castle GC is approximately 1.8 ranges in terms of resource expenditure. Use the rest for a complement. Xbow do very well in general. Skirms work if you need to kill archers but don’t want to leave them exposed to a cavalry counter.
- making the first fight with GC count. You only need 5 to 3 shot an FU knight and 7 to 2 shot. Mix them together in the same formation with whatever is prudent to prevent more than a few from dying. If you have feudal-massed archers/xbow mix them with those. If you have skirms or spears use those. Don’t try and micro the group separately, you will lose too many GC that way.
- Once you get like 15 it’s safer to have them be on their own because they 1 shot cav.
- Learn mixed micro with spears. Obviously standard pure GC or GC + xbow is better, but pike+GC is very gold effective. Extremely useful for zoning out the enemy/pushing forward if you’ve lost map control (i.e. gold) and the enemy has a bunch of melee cavalry. You can just about kill (i.e. obtain a pyrrhic victory) 2x the resource with unupgraded pikes + FU GC using this (best I can do is 1.8x the resource value vs FU knights). Stand ground box formation is very useful with GC because of their high DPS. Very useful vs paladin and very gold efficient as your comp is only 28% gold but theirs is 55%.
By mid castle you should be able to zone out the enemy military and can start doing things like castle drops or forward siege. Pros may not have to stone wall very often but stone walls stop raids. Even Hera acknowledges he should probably stone wall more often he’s just not in the habit of it.
Also make sure not to fall prey to the “Full upgrade fallacy” in AoE2. The absolute power of a unit isn’t relevant for decision making, only the relative power of the unit compared to alternatives that you yourself can build. I.e. look at the opportunity cost. Spamming Xbow from 3-4 ranges might be easy and have a visible upgrade in Imperial. But that doesn’t mean that 1 castle regular GC + 2 range arbs won’t be better still against a civ like franks or huns. Not to mention it’s much better in castle age than raw xbow. The fact that the upgrade only affects 2/3s or whatever as many xbow doesn’t change the ranking. In theory it can change the ranking which is why unit mixing is usually bad. However GC (and Boyars and Magyar Huszar) especially can be mixed in certain situations because they are better than only making the common unit due to the way their non-elite versions compare with the upgraded common version. GC only against cav, Boyar and Huszar work against everything.
E.g. in the Viper’s game it doesn’t matter if GC wouldn’t have won him the game. It would still be the best alternative at his disposal. Any rationalization regarding the unit not being strong enough or whatever is irrelevant. What matters is the choice to prioritize arbs over GC + arbs was suboptimal. Lastly,
You reasoning here is heuristically pretty good, i.e as rules of thumb what you said is fine. But from an optimization standpoint there are pretty large subsets of the game where they do not hold. Again see Boyars and knights, or Huszar and Hussar, it’s a very similar problem. Basically the ability to mass in feudal doesn’t matter as by the time the decision to build the castle comes about it’s a sunk cost. For picking and choosing one over the other that’s a false dichotomy because regular GC + arbs > arbs against most cavalry. So at the margin you can improve things by producing both simultaneously.
The only question is does it improve things enough to justify the upfront cost of the castle. This is the heart of the problem.
This is fine, just make sure the enemy doesn’t have more cavalry. Remember that if you match the DPS of a xbow ball against cavalry it means you have 60%-50% less effective health. If they have more cavalry you’ll get outflanked and surrounded and it sucks. The skirms are there for padding, but the choice of padding is up to you, xbow or pikes also work.
What. Wait, what.
The elite version is overall fine imo.
If you want to buff them, just increase their LOS or reduce the gold cost by -5 or something like that.
Exactly. Actually quite sad 
It used to be a fun civ to play back in the times when it was a viable civ.
But I don’t deny what you are saying, in fact, I’m probably saying the same thing just from a different point of view.
It’s just that from what you are saying, in those composition, the GC isn’t the main unit, but just a supplement, something to boost your skirms/xbows numbers (or other units) that will still play the main role because you’ll mass them way before you can get GCs. So basically it’s not a strategy that rely on GC, they are just a plus.
And I know that it could work, but from my experience, only about in late castle age I can start training GC (maybe because I give priority to pavise), before that, for the most part I rely on standard units.
Then in imp there is no problem, GC+hussars+BBC can kill everything, and I’m not complaining (except for the part where I’m missing SE, and a bit cheaper elite wouldn’t hurt either).
But if I go as GC for the main unit, then I’m most of the time just on the defensive. Both because of the initial small numbers, and because of their stats.
This can work too, if I’m mostly walled, and I’m just trying to boom into imp, then they can work decently.
Anyway, in both cases, they are hard to mass, which I guess is fine, every units needs a bit of a drawback.
Castle age Genoese is amazing, in late imperial age they suck because EGC upgrade gives them only +5 HP against non-cav and some training time that doesn’t matter for a bad unit (EGC, not GC).
Even against cav its only +2 atk and +5 HP (still weaker than other elite archer upgrades that usually give more HP, +1 range and +1 atk).
So buff EGC with +1 atk or range. You can tune down cav bonus by 1 in return.
The elite upgrade is not, it is too expensive. Yes, the unit is fine.
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Yeah, my bad. My post was kinda ambiguous.
You are right. The upgrade should be cheaper.
Yes, basically I am saying you cannot use GC in castle age as a “main unit” like you would with mangudai or conquistador for a bunch of reasons (speed, low HP/DPS, Training time). However it works extremely well as a supplementary unit. But since we don’t see it used as a supplementary unit, which is IMO it’s strongest role, its hard to gauge the castle age unit as balanced.
In imperial you can just use (E)GC as a main unit since castles are relatively cheaper.
@WoeIsToWho I’d say defensive buffs should be prioritized if any change is to be made after all this testing. The unit synergizes too well with trash to boost it’s offense much.
So one option for “fixing” the upgrade are boosting the health to 55HP on it’s own (no other changes). It primarily affects letting it survive 1 more hit from units which deal:
- 9 damage (FU xbow)
- 10 damage (FU arbs, FU CA, no bracer Skirms/HCA)
- 11 damage (FU HCA, FU skirms, FU hussars)
- 14 damage (Some UUs notably Cataphract w/o trample)
- 15 damage (Some UUs notably Keshik, Coustillier)
- 18 damage (FU Paladin, FU Battle elephants)
- 22 damage (4 relic lith Paladin)
- 23 damage (0 relic leitis)
If the unit is going to cost as much as it does, and can only be produced from castles, and halberdier is not a fallback option this seems a reasonable buff relative to the castle age unit.
Another alternative is +1 melee armor (for 6/5 armor total) instead of the health. Keeps the change mostly relegated to surviving heavy cavalry and fast infantry. Noteably affects hussars and paladins.
1 Extra LoS would be worth something as a defense against accidentally walking forward into an onager, though usually hussars are out at that point making this kind of a moot improvement.
2 Likes
Ok but simply reducing the elite upgrade cost isn’t the easiest and safest thing to do?
Because if that is the case, I don’t see why make this issue more complicated than what it needs to be.
Changing the stats of the GC will require other adjustments, nerfs or buffs and so…
If the elite cost is overpriced, let’s reduce the cost, which has no impact on other aspects of the civ.
I think as of right now the point is broken into two clearly opposed, definite proposals:
Buff the actual unit (does it need a buff in practice?) in order to make the current cost justified
Decrease the upgrade cost (feels less bad to acquire) in order to make the current cost justified
I’m not going to say which is better, because I think both have full merits.
I will, however, note that even if we did improve the unit it’s unlikely to take over games. The GC is just a difficult unit to make use of. Mainly, just on the principle that it’s main strength is countering a unit that outpaces it. And, given it’s nature as a ranged unit, it is best used in mass as opposed to spread out, which is a contrast to the unit it’s countering, Cavalry, which does it’s best work when spread out, hitting multiple areas, and using it’s high speed to it’s advantage.
Attack can work, I have that listed as “on the table” in the header, I do not support range increases as it makes it cost-effective against every unit in the game besides Siege, as you’d now be on even footing with range and damage as the Arbalest, while costing less gold and having more effective HP in the fight. That makes the Italian lategame of Hussar + GC way, way too efficient for what it costs.
Whether or not it needs it is a different story. The attack bonus is a big buff to an initial microable mass against small numbers of siege (possibly to overcome the innate pierce and snipe siege) and also a serious buff against trash in later stages. E. skirm will still be cost efficient, and the range is a big part of that, but it’d really change the matchup.
Again, this can work, but moreso for later stage efficiency. Honestly, I think this is the safer buff, simply because the unit is already very efficient in the later phases, and the problem with the unit isn’t getting enough value late, it’s getting enough value early, plus it’s a visibility buff. It’ll make the units more durable against siege, but not enough to survive an extra direct hit, just mitigate losses from splash more often than not.
Indeed, and in my view it’s certainly on the table, and I’d be okay if it’s just a substantial benefit to that category, but in my eyes it’s a “feel bad” change since the upgrade is already so lackluster. But does the unit become too efficient with extra HP, or too dangerous with the extra Attack? That’s the real question.
I think the HP change is safer, I think the Attack is more valuable generally, and especially later against trash, and I think the cost reduction is the change that makes the least waves.
I never understood how is it that the Genoese Crossbow has this Hugh Jazz shield and yet so little pierce armor. Compare with the Rattan which has this buckler on the shoulder and 6 pierce armor
bUt VIsuAls dON’t haVE AnYHtHing to dO wItH StATs
I know but it’s a bugging aspect of the game
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Yes, it is the easiest thing.
It would be very late. Personally I would be favorable to a range increase (better than now), even if I feel the cost reduction much safer, and I would be for the safest solution. Also +5 hp and/or extra PA armor may work.
And, ofc, Italians have a huge thematical hole. The civ does miss SE.
Despite being far from the bonus I would implement, I have to admit that the civ would make sense with this upgrade, regardless a stat buff of GC.