Indian units concept

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
1

We all know that there is a lot of room for improvement in the Indian units.
This is a try to improve the accuracy of them without slitting the civ.

Shamsherbaz (II)

  • Rodelero-like gladiator in Barracks.
  • Using a shield and a curved sword, movement is fast but expensive.
  • Replaces Rajput.

Sepoy (II)

  • Musketeer-type unit in Barracks. Basically no change.

Banduqchi (II)

  • Skirmisher-type unit in Barracks.
  • Cheap and weak. Similar to Strelet, but still costs coins.
  • Replaces Gurkha.

Sowar (II)

  • Regular Mughal heavy cavalry in Stables.
  • Reskinned, especially visually changed to riding a horse.
  • Maybe gets better combat power than the current one, but uses 2 population.

Kaman Rider (II)

  • Mughul mounted archer using kaman, the traditional Mughal bow, in Stables.
  • Fires quickly, or can fire multiple arrows at once as a gimmick, similar to Kipchaks in AoE2.
  • Costs food and wood.

Silladar Cavalry (III)

  • Muslim light cavalry armed with arquebuses or carbines in Stables
  • In the service of Mughal feudal lords and later in the employ of the East India Company.
  • Weaker but cheaper than the Dragoon, and uses 1 population, similar to the current Zamburak.

Bikaner Camel Rider (III)

  • Hand light cavalry in Stables. Good against cavalry and artillery.
  • Can use the current Sowar skin.
  • Or simply named Camel Sowar.

Mahout Lancer (III)

  • In Stables. Basically no change.

Howdah Shooter (III)

  • Renamed from Howdah.
  • In Stables. Basically no change.

Zamburak (II)

  • Moved to Castles. Uses 3 population.
  • Adjusted stats to use small artillery like Abus Gunners instead of rifles, so it is good aginst buildings in addition to cavalry, but weak against artillery.
  • Can be shared by Indians and potentially Persians.

Flail Elephant (II)

  • Basically unchanged.
  • If possible, can be changed to the unit of the potential Theravada Buddhist minor civ, rather than being the unit of the Indians.

Gajnal (III)

  • Renamed from Siege Elephant.
  • “Maybe” can gain the ‘Cavalry’ tag (or ‘Heavy cavalry’ tag) and lose the ‘Light Cavalry’ tag.

Gallivat

  • Replaces Caravel.
  • Weaker than Caravel, but cheaper and up to 6.

Armed Patamar

  • Replaces Galleon.
  • Weaker than Galleon, but cheaper, up to 4.

Grab

  • Replaces Frigate.
  • Weaker than Frigate, but cheaper, up to 4.

Catamaran

  • Renamed from Marathan Catamaran and Bandit Catamaran. Merges the two units into one.
  • Like the Canoes, can no longer train units.

Pindari

  • New outlaw unit. Use 6 population.
  • Act as a lancer unit against light infantry and villagers.

Arsonist

  • Becomes an outlaw and uses only 3 population.
  • HP, attack power and resistance are low, making it easy to be killed by cavalry and infantry.
  • Cheap, fast, fires quickly, and is very good against siege units, buildings, and ships.
  • Maybe can stealth.

Rocketeer

  • New mercenary unit. Use 3 population.
  • Visually, wearing formal clothing and holding a rocket pole.
  • The effect of the “Rocketeers” card will be to enable their training in Castles and increase their range.

Jat Lancer

  • Basically unchanged.

Rajput Knight

  • New mercenary unit. Use 4 population.
  • A noble light cavalry from northwest India, wielding a traditional curved sword, bow and shield.
  • Basically similar to Yojinbo. Melee attacks have the same power as ranged attacks.
  • Remove Yojinbo and introduce other Japanese mercenaries for the Japanese.

Gurkha

  • New mercenary unit. Use 3 population.
  • Can use the current Gurkha skin.
  • A powerful rifleman from Nepal who does decent damage even with melee attack.

Dandpatta

  • New mercenary unit. Uses 1 population and can be trained since Age II.
  • Can use the current Rajput skin.
  • Heavy infantry from the Marathas, using a pair of pata swords to counterattack the cavalry.

Maratha Marksman

  • New mercenary unit. Use 2 population.
  • Skirmisher units from Marathas.
  • Known for their guerrilla tactics, the infantry of the Maratha Empire possessed matchlocks and noted for their marksmanship, such as the Karnataki musketeers. They also served as the Maratha Light Infantry regiment since the British Raj.

Bargi

  • New mercenary unit. Use 4 population.
  • Hand light cavalry from Maratha. Moves very fast and is good against villagers and cavalry.
  • Can generate a slight trickle of coins when attacking, similar to Keshiks in AoE2.
  • The Marathas developed light cavalry to counter the Mughal heavy cavalry. Bargis were the main component of the Maratha Empire’s cavalry and were famous for their raids on Bengal.

I am not an expert on Indian history. Please feel free to comment.

6 Likes
2

I’d be a bit concerned about changing the tags on the Siege Ele.

Currently, “light cav” allows Skirmishers to counter them. Or at least soft counter them.

Changing it to “cavalry” means only melee infantry and stuff will counter them. It will also mean a bunch of random native techs will buff them.

Siege eles are pretty good against artillery because of their speed, and you need quite a few culvs to one shot one. Since the Indian monks can heal it back without any investment that makes them reusable. The difficulty of killing them with culvs makes skirms soft countering necessary imo.

If you want to see the cavalry tag added, without removing the current tag I don’t see that as a problem.

2 Likes
3

There are good sughestions here, but I won’t change elephants

4

Nice feedback. Thank for your reply.

The tag change is based on some opinions that they are weak as the role of artillery. I’ve seen somebody express those.

I personally don’t really eager that tag change. But if they can be more decent in a aspect and weaker in another aspect, that may be good too.

I will edit the original post for this.

5

This is important.

Hmm thats a better approach to zamburaqs

Thats all, no other changes are needed TBH else that will create a LEGACY OF ISSUES.

OK

Also there are DHOWs already existing in game, have elaborated here :

Yea thats needed

A pindari is a very general term reffering to a large class of Indian looting mercenaries. They should be Infantry and have the Loot mechanincs something like :
:eight_pointed_black_star: Gets +2 coin for every enemy/building killed.

This is must change.

A Rajput knight probably should be the main cav unit rather than a mercenary. and should have something similar stats as Royal horseman.

Great addition!!

This is the current rajput it uses the pataa, a rename would be great because Rajput is the name of a whole community/ Geography/ Culture/ People and more. The Khanda was the most famous form of sword that they used.

This is a refreshing addition though

6

Indian monks are the slowest healers in the game and heal only ONE unhit ata time which might be OK-ish in 1v1s at time but its most useless after 12-15mins. mark especially in team and longer games.

7

why should skirmishers counter an artillery piece? They don’t counter culvs or other culverin type artillery

2 Likes
8

There’s an upgrade at the monastery.

I wouldn’t be opposed to buffing their healing as part of the age 4 age up either.

Main thing is Siege Eles probably need something for treaty, but they need to be soft countered by skirms before having a bunch of culvs is really possible.

Problem is mostly in sup where the high speed is massive for deleting enemy artillery.

I think reducing their HP, increasing their range armor and maybe slightly increasing their attack would be good. It would (if the numbers are right) make skirms a softer counter and culvs a harder counter.

1 Like
9

EXACTLY the solution in my mind. that upgrade for 500f and 500g can enable the area healing. ATLEAST!

There is essentailly no “NEED” for skirms to counter an artillery.

They already PAY the price for their mediocre speed by having effectively NO damage to units and having a falc+2 range, for a culv+mortar.

10

The War Dhow is a mercenary unit, so I don’t consider to put it in Docks by default.
If there is a card to enable its training in Docks, may be fine. I’m not sure.

They were mostly horsemen armed with spears and swords who would create chaos and deliver intelligence about the enemy positions to benefit the army they accompanied. 

As a class of freebooters in Maratha armies they acted as a “sort of roving cavalry
rendering them much the same service as the Cossacks for the armies of Russia.”

— quoted from wiki.

Maybe name it to Pindari Horseman to make the cavalry image more clear.

The Rajputs served the Hindu rulers of the past against Muslim cavalry and later also served the Muslim rulers and the East India Company. It can also serve other civilizations as long as the local rule, authority and interests of the Rajput nobles are recognized and respected.

I like its versatility as both archery and melee combat. I personally think it is most appropriate to become a being similar to Yojinbo. As one of the non-Marathan martial race mercenaries, I also tend to make it sufficiently different from the Jat Lancer, who is also a martial race mercenary. This way, you have three martial races to satisfy your needs: light infantry Gurkha, light cavalry Rajput Knight, and heavy cavalry Jat Lancer.

By the way, the Japanese don’t need Yojinbo because Yabusame is actually better to use. Yojinbo literally means just a bodyguard. It is neither a special nor important existence, and it has nothing to do with mounted archery. This unit is actually just based on Akira Kurosawa’s film Yojimbo, which like the Blind Monk is based on popular entertainment rather than history.

What I learned is that the pata sword is a weapon that originated from Maratha, often referred to in its native Marathi as a dandpatta. The Marathas used them against the Mughal cavalry. One of the Maratha ruler’s bodyguards even used the weapon to chop off the hand of a Mughal general’s bodyguard. The article in Wikipedia does mention that the Mughals developed a variant, but most part of it describes it as the representative weapon of the Maratha. Therefore, I list it as one of the three Maratha mercenaries.

I longed for the Indian hero to be a noble like a Raja rather than monks, so it would be a reasonable leader of armies and towns.

The Raja can be a musket-wielding hero, riding on a howdah, up to 1.
Cease Fire and Inspiration can be given to the Raja as active abilities, and the current Mansabdar aura can also be given to the Raja to buff all type of units nearby it. In this way, we don’t need the wonders and the thematically strange Mansabdar variants as their “containers”, so we can solve the problems of the wonders by the way.

Allows the Monastery to train ordinary monks as cheap healers, and also train Brahmin (no longer hero) as expensive and powerful healers. Brahmin, as the leader of the religion, can generate a small trickle of XP, providing benefits even when not healing, but the number is up to 4.

1 Like
11

You can use melee units since you wont face anti infantry canons.

You dont send skirmishers vs falconets, do you?

12

India cant afford a single more card no more, meanwhile a Dhow is a general term and the Main Indo-african ship. rather than the portugese caravel. As even after the arrival of ports, Dhows remained the primary ways.

The Patamar Galleon you mentioned is itself is a dhow.

yeah adding a horsemen to the name would suffice, as Pindari is more of like a tag than a unit, one can be tagged as pindari if he performs a looting and mercenary tasks with an army size group.

And the term Pindari is usually refered to a looter mercenary, more like Barbary Corsair looking. the cav element is more considered with the transporation than them being a cavalry properly.

Yea sorry I confused Pata with Khanda. I meeant Khanda is the Rajput sword.

Anyways its fine Rajputs and Marathas are considered as Cousins ethnecity. So both eventually use each other weaponry.
Rajput had their high time more in AOE2 timeline and early Mughal period, meanwhile Marathas were the shinning stars for AOE3 period. (As in AOE3 times Rajputs usually get an autonomous status with whoever was the dominant power in subcontinent, No one really wanna mess with them, as defeating them also costed wayy more than just treaty with them).

I would still object the current naming and the model for Rajputs. As it appears sorta inappropriate. And doesn’t intend the current meaning.

True though Rajputs are mostly renowned for their melee combat abilities, and less on ranged combat. A melee inf and a Elite heavy cav Justifies the Raj0put image. IDK how fitting it would be to add.

Well a Raja literally means King, so having a raja as an explorer is out of question. Asian civs have the explorer based on their native themes and represented with their spiritual explorers that usually travel large distances to learn and explorer (Mostly philosphically and search ofr knowledhe rather than Curiosity.)

13

Just like every ship of the Chinese is actually a junk.
Let the current War Dhow shipment card also enable it, if you wish.
I knew Patamar is a kind of dhow, and it can be the representative of Indian dhow, even printed on the paper money of India.

So I replace the current Rajput with Shamsherbaz, introduce Rajput Knight to represent them more accurately, and let the concept of the current Rajput become the Marathan mercenary named Dandpatta.

Although the Yojinbo is a light cavalry, it’s melee attack is as high as it’s ranged attack, which is pretty special and is what I want Rajput Knight to become to. Being a light cavalry is also nice to compose with other martial race mercenary units, Gurkha of light infantry and Jat of heavy cavalry.
It’ll be a nice counter unit against cavalry and artillery, like how they had fought against the invaders from the northwest.

506×688 53.9 KB

14

They should be there by default Ideally as well as Uru. In one way or the other.

Oh yep thats a veryyy old note Probably never seen by anyone in current generation.

yeah that would be wayyyyy more accurate. (We are achieving levels of refinement in this discussion never seen in 15yrs TBH GREAT!! )

Yep I know Yojimbo.

I would preffer a 60 : 40 ratio of Melee Power : ranged. The ranged Damage can be something mediocre and onloy against All cav, meanwhile the melee damage should be likes of Royal horsemen or any second ranking top cav in the game,

  • Maybe the speed can be lesser ? and area damage or better ROF can be added. and the pop being 3.
1 Like
15

Some of these do make some sense, But.

The consulate/Exoport system needs to be overhauled from the start first.

2 Likes
16

I like all these suggestions but don’t you dare remove Yojimbo.

Yojimbo is a reference to a famous film of the same name that was a major influence of American westerns (specifically “Fistful of Dollars” was accused of plagiarizing the film) and future Japanese films. The main character of the movie is a wandering samurai that
 well if you’ve seen fistful of dollars it’s that but replace cowboy with ronin.

Big Huge games were massive weebs which is why Japan is the way Japan is, lol

17

Of course not. But Siege Eles aren’t falcs. They basically auto-win vs the 2 falcs, and then they have a lot more siege, allowing them to take down critical infrastructure.

As for using melee units, it’s a lot easier said than done. With 4 speed and no animation to switch between modes it’s easy to retreat from melee infantry when you have Sepoys to cover you and melee cavalry are countered by Sepoys as well (btw, Sepoys should do 2x, maybe 2.5x vs cavalry in melee, but off topic).

4 speed in blast mode is mediocre?

It takes 5 culvs to one-shot a Siege Ele. That means you need at least 3 culvs to kill them effectively. You can’t afford 3 culvs as fast as India can send the Siege eles (at least with most civs and assuming you want enough units to defend the culvs).

How I’d suggest buffing Siege Elephants would be as follows:
Reduce pop cost to 6.
Reduce HP to 500.
Increase Range Armor to 40%.
Leave their damage the same, reduce the 10x vs Buildings to 8x.
Cost is changed to 450c, 250f.

With the card to reduce their pop cost they’d only use 5pop. They’d also be cheaper and more damage efficient vs artillery late game while being less of an issue in early age 3.

18

That’s not the purpose of this topic.
What I did in this topic was nothing more than the equivalent of the changes Ottomans got at the time, but changing the consulate mechanic would involve more core design of the civ.

I’ve mentioned the film, and I’ve said I don’t care about removing it.

You also pointed out that it is just a ronin doing the job of a bodyguard, and there is already the Ronin in the game. Even if it is a reference to the protagonist Sanjuro in the movie, the Yojinbo in the game still makes no sense as a mounted archer unit.

If all that was important was that the name Yojinbo be in the game, the developers could make it a new name for an existing card/tech or introduce a new card/tech named after it.

19

  1. Play different and dont send 2 falcs ASAP. Wait until eles are out for example.

  2. Sepoys do x1.75 vs cav, so they are worse than standard musketeers in lategame in that role.

  3. India doesnt get drummers.

  4. Siege eles already do less damage at less range than mortars while they take more pop slots. After card they already take 5 pop slots.

  5. You could still use skirmishers and musketeers, but not needed to habe multipliers. They are countered by any fkg unit in the game

2 Likes
20

True. I can’t speak for supremacy, but when I play treaty games with India, culverins always get the first shot before my clunky siege elephants can even get into position to fight back. They usually gotta circumvent the army mass in front to even get a clear shot. Despite the HP to tank more shots, I find that culverins wars are actually very pretty expensive for India, having to replenish hella wood and gold for them. And if the enemy culverins don’t do the job, my siege elephants are already taking in some sneaky skirm fire because sometimes they go a bit astray when trying to reach the enemy culvs in the back.

It also gets worse in chokehold situations where India can’t run around the map, such as Black Forest or between two cliffs, etc. Not much you can do when you can’t reach mortars or beat the mass culverins (therefore enabling the enemy to maintain mass artillery). Imo, tanky HP is not that great a perk when you get first shot by imperial culverins anyways

1 Like