I’m pretty much sure the African kingdom new stuff (like new feudal boats and arrowslits) were available to people with the Forgotten only.
Halberdier was introduced because pikemen were way too weak and had quite a hard time countering paladins at all, while light cav needed two buffs (bloodlines and Hussar) because it was just a weak unit line in general.
The Forgotten was initially a FREE mod (that is still downloadable for any AoC CD). And in said mod Imp camels had always been planned as an Indian exclusive.
Because Indians have Elephant archers. It’s not because you don’t se it in 1v1 arabia games it doesn’t exist.
I don’t get it. They already are better than other camel civs, and all in different ways. Why would you tweak them so that they have other stats (even tho they work just fine, and are already unique) and then mess with the rest of their tech tree? The devs have better things to balance anyway.
I realised that I overestimated the SL when I tried to test whether mongol SL are better than knights in Castle (Over buffing civilizations - #52 by CactusSteak2171). You need some holy micro to get them to win vs Malay knights in the first place. They fail to be cost-efficient AND pop-efficient vs other bloodlines-less knights and there is no way they win vs FU knights. Wanting to add another upgrade to otherwise fine units (or adding a strong line of units to a strong civ) couldn’t be more different that making a weak unit more available.