India needs an late game update. Ideas and suggestions

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
1

There are other topics that have already establish the fact, that India and other asian civs seriously need an update for the late game. Especially with the new mechanics and units being introduced.

This Topic is solely to collect the Ideas from community, that can be considered for future implementations. And improve Indian Treaty/Team/Late game in general.

(India doesn’t have 1 big issue it has 100 minor issue, no one lists them together so, Also listed most issues at the end.)

CC: @Ippert , @IkoKnight8151 @vividlyplain @Breadalus

New Suggestions:

  • Sacred fields give trickle : can be be balanced and adjust as per need. sort of semi factories or shrines. Although a sacred field in real life, is itself a shrine.

  • Add Dutch / Sweden Consulate that can give an Arsenal.

  • Add/Make cards percentage better to compensate the lack other eco cards and of arsenal.

  • Add a new building, Some sort of Arsenal+Capitol, with a higher than normal cost, that can contain the mini eco and military upgrades BOTH.

  • Devs Make elephant pathing better.

  • Increase Siege ele range to 32 or 34 from 28/30.

  • Simply Give a mortar like the natives got.

  • Rework useless cards. Buff Auras and abilities.

  • Infinite wood, Mango Grove. Or free with Last age up.

  • *Increase POP Limit*

  • Enable Mansabdar to be created from barracks and stable. While charminar is standing. Or allow to convert a normal unit to Mansabdar unit by paying a price and a Big button.

  • Make Jat lancers viable.

  • Make Mercenary card affect asian Mercenaries.

  • Remove Mohout x.67 multiplier on heavy cav.

  • Add buff for sepoy in Dravidian Martial art card.

  • UI - Show Karni mata range.

  • Add animal Attraction to Karni mata.

  • Allow Tower of victory to create 1 mango grove.

  • Switch Sacred fields to Export.

  • India has been a unique civ but with new DLC that uniqueness has been dilluted, by giving mohout and howdah to africans, and making Mango grove available to all on Punjab and many other things. But nothing has been imported. Like : Mercenary, cannons, Double shipments, newer cards, card reworks. etc. those things could’ve been imported to Indian and asian cards.

Issues

:
Issues in late game
  1. Sick of uneducated claim about SIEGE ELE being OP or best

If someone cant understand the pop,eco,range,vulnerability cost of a siege ele.

Just answer this simple Question:

Will you exchange Indian Siege options for any europeon or any other civ ?

  1. Cards
    Military cards: Are just compensation for arsenal. They bring units to normal levels rather than buffing them.
    Eco cards : Doesn’t have Refrigeration, nor any extra Gold card :slight_smile:
    Wood Trickle cards are a basic necessity. also the team trickle cards is worst trickle card in the game.
    Also there are alot of useless cards like : Enable slowest healing from Sacred fields. Enable Camel/Ele give almost 0 trickle. one of the strongest unit comes only from cards etc etc.
    There are no villagers shipments, but 1 villager per normal shipments.
    And for such a shipment dependent civs its always hard to pick/sacrifice cards. Meanwhile some civs have double 7 vill shipment double 4 flaming, free cards being added in every age etc.

  2. Wonders:
    4.Fort*: Is nowhere near an outpost / Euro-Inca-haussa fort. Needs a very slow upgrade in each age.
    5.Taj mahal*: The only decent wonder
    6.Karni Mata* : BUGGED! Ultra nerfed economic theory in a form of wonder, and smallest range.
    7.Tower of Victory*: To create a 10 second illusion that ur units are better. Less effective than 2 griot in a real game.
    8.Charminar* : Literally NO ONE EVER USED MANSABDAR EVER before the pop reduction. And even now its hard to retrain them and make them reach the point of action on time. Also! they all still takes double the time n double the cost.

  3. Other Missing stuff

  • Slowest train time in the whole game. + No true artillery. = No surety of beating a large continuous waves of Heavy infantry
  • Siege ele (a Culv + mortar) with 28 range (LOL) + the Most countered unit of the game = U cant reach the enemy culv/mortar but every enemy unit can kill ur Siege unit :slight_smile:
  • Mohout and sepoy claimed as main units + slow train time, WORST pathing in the game + High pop/Eco cost = U cant use mohout much, nor spam them. there are musks with far greater hand attack and range than Sepoy.
  • No factory + Wood depended = If u managed to spam a batch of mohout, dont expect next one anytime soon. Also wastes the Dravidian martial art card that buffs rajpoot cause rajput cost wood and no one makes them EVER.
  • Camels are still useless : needs 2 cards to make them close to below average.
  • Other civs are simply wayy more Updated and suited for the warfare.
    IMO For the devs, Asian Civs = Japan.
    Normal civs = USA + Europe.
    Civs to Conciously ignore = Iro, India.

  1. Absolutely Worthless consulate:
    Export is so slow it doesn’t makes sense. There is a topic on the forum about the feasibility of export do check it. And out of all 3 civs, the Indian consulate is single handedly the worst. It never really proves its worth. Meanwhile others can have 3 trickles factory , train time reduction, hatamoto , ninjas etc.

  2. Mercenaries:
    Well there is no doubt that Swedish and some other civs have OP mercenaries. Meanwhile asian mercenaries are unusable thnx to high cost and pop. Also, apart from Japan Asians/India doesnt really have a unit that can hard counter mercenaries. Thats a broad topic in itself.

5 Likes
2

IMO 90% of their problems would be fixed with 2 things:

  1. Greatly buff the Karni Mata’s later age bonuses, in both range and strength of the aura.
    a. In a similar vein, giving the Karni Mata the ability to research a tech that gives Sacred Fields a weaker version of its own aura would be super nice.
  2. Give them a tech that allows them to train units in batches of 10 rather than 5. Would be a far more interesting way of buffing their slow train speeds than just giving them a generic training boost.

Would also be nice to be able to train Urumi, but I could understand why that doesn’t happen.

5 Likes
3

I think this is interesting but I’ll elaborate on all the things adding dutch consulate would do

  1. it would give a bank. small eco boost, likely not applicable in 95% of supremacy games since ottoman 4v is just much more cost effective. would be nice in extended gameplay

  2. Church. Boom, train times fixed. also spies and monks wouldn’t be unwelcome, plus the other little quality of life los techs and mercantilism.

  3. Arsenal. NOT advanced arsenal, i think thats important, the last thing we need is sepoy running around with flint lock and (i am aware of the irony here) paper cartridge. This would get them rifling for minor natives/ mercs, sepoy melee buff, an extra bit of hp on rajputs, sowars mahouts and flails. More interestingly, caracole would buff siege elephants +2 range (assuming the light cav tag isnt removed), as well as zambs and howdah- and before anyone jumps in and say howdah with caracole is too much, well, ethiopia gets them and its not an issue there. 10% extra damage on siege elephants would make a big difference against heavy artilery too. plus flaming shot would be a nice perk for castles and siege ellies on water maps.

  4. mortars. most of the dutch cons units are not particularly interesting for india, but the mortars would be a great addition. japan is the only civ that has access to dutch cons mortars and why on earth would they use them when morutaru are so much better idk.

net results would be a little buff to mahouts, rajputs lategame, normalized train times, +2 range on siege elephants to 32 max (i think thats propably acceptable for a culv), access to a limited number of mortars, and a small buff to coin eco.

the tech “terror charge” would need its train time reduction removed (and the tech cheapened or reworked)
royal green jackets would need a rework. idk its an awful card for value currently, it definitely needs a rework anyway.

regarding mansabdars, i think if they delivered the unit to the hc shipment point, that would fix the problem entirely

oh and additionally, you are of course aware that dravidian buffs literally every unit right? that includes urumi, mahout melee, flail elephant siege, everything that has a melee attack

5 Likes
4

As long as the Charminar Gate is standing, a single unit of each type should be allowed to be promoted to a Mansabdar. Will cost resources and the unit cannot move or attack while it’s being promoted.

This will ensure you always have mansabdars nearby to buff your units…

3 Likes
5

i dont think Sweden should be a consulate option for India considering they had 1 factory that was burnt in less than a year.

Dutch or Perhaps eventually Danish consulate options make more sense.

but as for adding an arsenal option then i am against it, why? because that would mean getting a skirmisher with 4x vs heavy infantry, that is not cool. at least you then need to remove the HC card improving anti HI dmg for them.

2 Likes
6

Great analysis for the Dutch consulate, it certainly can be added IMO.

yea, but it as usual, makes all melee reach a normal lever nothing, significant. Even for Rajpoots which get 30% more, get only comparable to other counterparts. the only low-key advantage id for urumi,mohout and for flail n sepoy if situation suits.
It ain’t a buff card. more of a necessary card. and I can certainly name few musks that have wayyyyyy more hand attack/HP/Speed/Range than a fully buffed sepoy.

Even the Haussa Griot has comparable/more hand attack to sepoy, will not talk about Maigidi. :slight_smile:

7

The arsenal would improve the range of the zamburaks to 14, and would give the Gurkha a +1 bonus against heavy infantry, as well as affect all rifle infantry and not just the Gurkha. (With this, the green hunting card would have another function).

Sepoys should have less base mele attack so the bayonet upgrade doesn’t make them too strong.

The ‘cavalry snail’ upgrade would affect 3 of its units:

Zamburak: Go from rank 12 to rank 14
Howdah: Would improve your range from 16 to 18. (Your Ethiopian counterpart reaches this range)
Siege Elephant: It would give him +2 rank so he would be left with 32 rank if we assume that he also improves +1 rank with each upgrade.

Then we would already have an excellent way of facing artillery and cavalry. If necessary, its damage could be reduced.

The Siege Elephant, although it does not have as much range as the mortar, is a good siege unit because of its versatility.

8

Crates are enough, I would change tower of victory shipment (from aging up) to mango groves becoming something similar to lakota wisewomen. Also I would boost the gather rate of these ones, making them more usable as coal mines on supremacy decks.

PLEASE!!! its impossible to use elephants without this, india is the second most populated country!!!

I would boost camels ones giving sowars more bonus becoming them something similar to uhlans, high attack but few HP.
Also i would remove the ×0.67 vs HI of mahouts, they should act as truly canons for India.

They could work, but if you change them they have to be changed to japan too. Also 30 goats could be fine to them.

We can add Sweden for the sake of the game (they are the only ones that arent on consulate), with an special arsenal for them or enable this military techs as the consulate shipments, or this arsenal + mine + boost to mercs (?)

THIS PLEASE!!! as atlanteans from AoM

The effect removed from the HC card of course, instead devs could buff it with more gurkhas per shipment or becoming it a military card for gurkhas and/or sepoys. Maybe a range attack buff for gurkhas and a melee one for sepoys(maybe more bonus vs cav?). In sepoys description says that have a good attack vs cavalry but its nothing special.

About training time, we could give a mosque to ottoman consulate with its upgrades (or similar ones). This way indians could get villagers faster despite lacking villager shipments.

9

YES!!! this can solve alotttt of issues ! coz having weaker units, with higher pop and lower pop limit takes nowhere.

That would atleast make mohout to be viable on front lines.

For that i was thinking a buff for sepoy on Dravidian Martial arts card. They already added one for rajput.

10

Also ! how about Tower of victory being able to make 1 mango grove wagon. ? added that to list.

11

I think the Grazing card should be looked at as a buff since it’s nearly useless.

Some sort of buff to sacred field / /livestock seems reasonable to me even if there is an age 4 upgrade like japan has to their shrines.

Seige Elephants are faster than culvs they don’t need the range upgrade.

Zamburaks are still better than ruyters even with 14 range, not to mention you have a choice…you can get howdah’s for range and or zamburaks for speed.

The main reason to get arsenal is the counter infantry rifling and counter cav range, but as I said before you have a choice between howdah and zamburak and there’s the royal green jackets card for gurka (which admitedky is a pretty underwhelming card).

I am however in favor of giving india rockets as they had them first.

12

A siege ele is Countered by every possible unit in the game. you can beat the speed, but not the range.
Also ! Its not only a Culv, its a Mortar also. Also, siege ele train time is slower and far more pop heavy and costly. Also do read the issues section.

Comparing Dutch Gold based unit with many upgrades to a very fragile Indian 80food/80gold unit ain’t fair. It needs 2 wasteful cards to reach a below average level. Previously Zams had 30% range resist even then they were not feasible, now they are useless. Also! howdahs are good but not an alternate to zamburaqs, they have huge pop and very low range.

13

honestly siege elephants probably just should have their “light cavalry” tag removed, it probably would fix most of that units problem.

14

Just give them a cannon to replace the fictional siege elephant unit and shift the culv role into Howdahs.

15

Siege elephants are fine. You don’t want to have them as the biggest chunk of the army, you need to escort them with other cavalry. They are very good when microed.

2 Likes
16

in regards to royal green jackets, I’d like to see it reworked a bit anyways. its dreadfully underwhelming to ship a 1000res card for rifling on literally a single unit (at least chinas has the unique goon bonus). I’d like to see it add 3 gurkhas onto each consulate army instead of each tech. then you could train 3 huss (or 6 muskets) and 3 gurkha for 400 export, which would feel pretty worthwhile in long games. currently its pretty bad.

other things it could buff instead of rifling if they had access to an arsenal could be +5 range resist, a replacement for military drummers, cost reduction, etc.

1 Like
17

not good enough for late game or team games when there is alot of crowd.

so true

18

Hi, I am a legacy player, I will chime in because one day I hope to get a computer with more RAM and play DE. and want to ensure changes are done responsibly. There are many changes I am not aware of so forgive my ignorance.

I mainly played India in FFA which is a mix of SUP and TR, and mainly used the same deck I used in TR games. I at one time did start using India in TR and got to a Major rank even with using India and its limitations it had then, from what I have seen it is already buffed quite a bit already. This FFA experience also gives me insight on how changes for TR will effect Supremacy.

From what I noticed then most players would avoid using the 9 urumi shipment and treated India as a Gurka howda civ to mimic Skrim goons cannon play. India was just not designed to play like that since it has no anti infantry cannon, Its really more of an aggressive melee civ, and when it is played like that many of the draw backs I did not notice. The only things then I wanted to change was mahout pathing/ obstruction, (so many times they would be on their way to attack, then something passed in front of them, and completely redirect around the whole army) and give them 1 range to the siege attack (because they sometimes just stand there unable to attack the wall due to units in the way) and I had wished Urumi would ship in half the time. In all other areas, even with siege elephants I thought was well balanced.

Some things could have been improved like train time for camels. If india had one unit to spam out quickly when dangerously under popped I may have used a few then. But they should not be over buffed units to make Viable for TR.

another thing that would have been nice, would be to allow all consulate armies to arrive from shipment points and train cannons individually instead of with batches of units. I also recognize that once TR ends the amount of XP given by sacred fields does not give too much of an advantage to shipments produced compared to other civs, at that point the kill XP rather evens them out, so It could be possible to give an option for Sacred fields to produce export or XP.

notes:
The dutch Consulate sounds like a civ breaking change

I think extra pop would not be fair, once TR ends and the fur trade is sent, India can drop down to 80 vils (sometimes even less) until that coin runs out. and that is how I coped with the slow train times, by just having more on the field. If once mircos the units and gets favorable kill ratios the economy is fine.

If any changes made to the Siege ele it should have the same range, but have the artillery tag removed instead. (maybe even add a heavy cav tag or hidden multipliers so goons can kill them too) due to their speed they need to be countered by units since good maneuvering could make them nigh invincible to culv only counter, except to be baited into killing other cannons that would be near culvs.

A infinite mango grove card for all civs would be something to consider as an option ( but give it HP so not to be used as a wall) I say this because wood is generally the deciding factor in winning and losing TR, when a Euro civ loses its factories its a slow death from there. So giving some civs infinite wood resources and others not would not be good balance… it would still be up to the other civs to decide whether or not to use that card. it would also be nice if they were not all mangroves but civ appropriate wood choices.

mansabars should just spawn at shipment points.

2 Likes
19

If we’re talking Supremacy, then India is currently sleeper OP.

If you’re strictly talking late-game Imperial for Treaty, ok fine - maybe give them a few tiny buffs. As long as it doesn’t affect their Industrial and before game, because they are currently one of the strongest.

6 Likes
20

Right here, one of the best India players I’ve ever played with, and I’ve been playing with him for years. Listen to what he says.

(It’s Anadanament - Dunno if you remember me. I’m not so good lmfao.)

3 Likes