Camels are terrible at being an archer tank, they’ve got zero base pierce armor. Hussars are slightly better, but per-cost still offer far less than Elephant Archers do. Plus, they don’t automatically take the ideal position to tank in the way Elephant Archers do.
They are if you consider the number of them you’re going to use. When you upgrade into a normal elite UU, you’re planning on using them for the majority of your army, or at least a significant percentage of it. Even in an ideal scenario, you’re not going to want more than maybe 5% of your army to be Elephant Archers.
Hussars are disposable as Indians, as your Castle Age boom will see you spamming Farms left and right, so you can always pad out your frontline with a lot of Hussars, very quickly.
Most UUs have the same issue. If you drop the EEA upgrade price vey low, then all of a sudden you will have to do the same for a whole lot of other UUs, like Catphracts and TKs, as they have the exact same issue; good but expensive.
The difference is that those units are meant to be used as the majority of their army.
I want to achieve the same cost proportion per unit for Indians as other civs. For example, Byzantines might make 40 Elite Cataphracts at a time. By contrast, Indians will only make maybe 8 Elite Elephant Archers.
Therefore, the Indian Elite Upgrade should be around 1/5th the cost of the Byzantine Elite Upgrade.
No they are not, as they are not that easy to muster. They are specialists that are overshadowed by other units in their own civ’s Tech Tree, except in very specific circumstances.
TKs can go against Paladins better than Champions.
Cataphracts are uncountered by Halberdiers or Heavy Camels.
Bot are just very situational, and easily replaced with other units that are availbale to Teutons and Byzantines.
TKs are meant to be the majority of the army? how? they are terrible as the core of an army. they are a very good siege guard though, against melee units.
that’s not the way stuff works though. by that logic, the crossbowmen tech should be very expensive, and the ranged bs attack upgrades should be far more expensive then the melee attack upgrades.
I mean, Teutonic Knights are a terrible example, they’re not good at anything.
Cataphracts are a better example, they’re totally good, they’re just expensive to tech into, but once you do tech into them, you can absolutely make them the majority of your army.
They are as relevant as Elephant Archers, and a very apt example.
Both are easily overshadowed by units that share theor category: Champions and Cav Archers.
By the time you actually tech into Elite Catas and Logistica, you either lost the game, or you are on Trash Wars and have no Gold to make 40 Catas anyway.
Nor would you, since you have efficient Trash as Byz.
The Crossbow upgrade is expensive. It’s way costlier than the Longsword upgrade, for example. It perfectly fits my point.
Sure, but those are contrasted with the upgrade cost for Paladins, not with the upgrade cost for Battering Rams, which is basically the role Elephant Archers fill.
Which is why Cataphracts are typically used in team game situations.
Either way, it has nothing to do with my point, because once you achieve that scenario, they become perfectly viable, and in fact very hard to counter, despite their cost. Their upgrade cost does eventually become worth it.
Because you make lots of them, and the upgrade cost gets diluted.
But you’re never going to make even the same order of magnitude of Elephant Archers, so the upgrade cost never gets diluted.
EAs are more like a mix between Towers and Skirmishers, rather than Rams. The only attribute they have even relative to Rams, is the bonus damage to buildings.
Team Games are a weak argument. Almost everything is viable in Team Games, by virtue of Trade.
Sure, some options are stronger than others, but you almost never see them in 1v1, for which they are balanced around.
If you do that, you will have to do it for a lot of other UUs.
Ah, my bad, I was looking at the upgrades to Arb vs 2hs. Eh, whatever, my point still stands.
Doesn’t make any sense, they’re already balanced. It’s just the Elephant Archer that needs buffs. And seeing as it already has a niche where it’s good, it’s just too expensive to use there, the obvious choice is a cost reduction.
This is contrasted with other UUs like the Teutonic Knight, which wouldn’t be helped by a cost buff, because they’re terrible no matter what.
which can be easily accomplished by making the EA resistant to units that counter it. like making it take less damage from skirms, pikes, and camels. turn it into a true tank for the ranged units behind it.
It already is resistant to pretty much everything, that’s the nature of having massive health.
In point of fact, when you compare it to a battering ram, it’s more tanky in virtually every way. The only real vulnerability is against Halbs, but those are countered by Indians Hand Cannoneers! It’s just the massive cost that makes them unrealistic in any game. After all, their purpose is to create a cost-effective fight even without doing much themselves, and you can’t do that with a massive upfront cost!
Except indians just got a pretty massive nerf to their fishing rate, so it’s a perfect time for a relatively small buff like this to make them a more balanced civ overall!
except it still takes a lot of damage from those. imagine if those units did 20% less damage on top of the massive health. it would help them be a much more efficient unit.
Not cost-effective, but pop-effective. They are, as you said, a strength multiplier against Ranged units.
Not with teh Docks delivery, they didn’t. They are still better Fishermen than most other civs, and gather basically just as fast, since they do not have to travel to a Mill or TC.
Indian Fishermen are OP on Nomad.