I heard this is the case. What way will they buff Indians to off set the nerf? Will Indians get Battle Elephants? Or at the very least, non elite version. Or some other buff?
Will Indian camels still do their job and put late game Paladin spammers in their place?
i don’t think they get this, as it does, well nothing, for their 1v1 issues.
I’m guessing they get either Arbs or Knight/Cavalier.
Besides elephant archer, i think they may buff sultanate effect (so their gold lasts more and thus they end using bad hussars later)
Also, maybe they buff HC all civs. This would be nice for indians, specially whem combined with a sultanate buff.
I believe the Indian loss of the last cav. armor is a really, really bad idea.
This change would mean the imperial camel isn’t the strongest camel in the game anymore. It would instead become the Saracen heavy camel. In a head-to-head fight, the Saracen camel will consistently win, on top of being tankier against archer-fire.
Considering the Saracens have besides insane camels an absolutely awesome tech tree (except the knight line in imperial age), the Indians do not. For 1v1s, what have the Indians to offer others can’t do better? And in TGs the Saracen team bonus is much more often useful for teammates than the Indian one.
On top of the serious balance issue, I’m afraid it would also be very bad design within the game and even the whole franchise. “Imperial” has thus far always meant “best” and it should therefore stay that way. At least on equal numbers (considering the Berbers have the best camels on equal resources, even if the extra camels join the fight later, as SotL found out).
What I suggest is that either this planned change gets axed, or Zealotry has to change as well. The cost of that upgrade has been reduced not long ago, so now could be the time to reduce its effect as well, preferrably by 10 HP. To offset that for the mameluke, he could profit from a 5g cost reduction buff. The Saracen and Indian camels would be tied as most-archer resistant and the Slav and Saracen UU would be tied as most expensive non-siege, cannon galleon or monk units.
We still don’t know whether imperial camel upgrade has been modified though, so I would wait and see before complaining.
Indians will now auto-lose in the Imperial Age, against any Infantry civ.
It doesn’t even need to be an Infantry civ: Mayans, Franks…
unless of course Indians are given something like Knight/Cavalier or Arbalests.
I’m thinking Arbalests would be better because it helps them against Infantry civs.
Aztec Skirms can also complete with Imperial Skirmishers.
Imo is good to make Indian camels comparetitively worse, especially because Indians have a great booming economy.
I hope they get elephants, but I doubt it would matter for gameplay. Elephants are mostly strong when FU, in imp.
If Indians can’t put Paladin spammers in their place anymore, hopefully camels will be buffed (though not in castle age).
For compensation for 1v1s… Idk… It’ll need to be pretty big. They could try giving them key techs, but that feels like a boring option.
They could give them a UU that’s actually useful, or some help teching into FU HCA.
Just giving them Knights is the simplest way to help their 1v1. Shows how broken the knight is 
Losing one MA armor in this guy words means >20 HP and +2attack is now useless without even taking in consideration training time and HUGE economic difference btw those 2 civs and that indians camel demolish buildings faster than tarkans.
Indians became cancer in Team games because of the imp camel, saracens have never been close to that point in 19 years of existing zealotry camels and 4 years since they removed the ship armor class.
While the nerf is bad for the hussar line the imp camel will be the very same cavalry slayer, slightly weaker vs arrows like it should be on first place.
Yeah Indians went down from a top to at best mediocre civ when they lost arb and extra melee armor on camels. Now that they got a nerf which is huge, getting arb back to me sounds kind of mandatory if nothing else is done. Besides that this would make a significant difference for 1v1 while not really affecting them in tg.
Looking at the Indian nerf to camel melee armour there may have been a general buff to HC. There were some requests made I think. HC buff might help Indians countering inf civs a little better?
Problem is, HC is available in Imperial Age. Somehow you need to survive the pressure of the Goth or other infantry civ before.
They lost imp armour so
AKA this is a huge abomination, Give them Knight and Cavalier please!!!
What difference would that make? Since they lack the last armor upgrade, you won’t go cavalier anyway.
At least in castle you will get a good raiding unit to be more playable in 1v1
hmm, but you still don’t want to invest much in knights, as they become really bad in imp. It would make more sense to have back arbalests.
Arbalest doesn’t guarantee you the final victory in 1v1
And Japanese and Saracens already have all units and techs for their archery range units, left them as unique
Further proof that balancing for Team Games, is one of the worst decisions a balancing team can make.
Balance should always be laser-focused in 1v1.