Was trying out PUP beta and managed to find a custom lobby of 3v3.
One of the player was playing abbassid and he was spamming camel archer.
In current live version, 5 camel archers can be simply be kited with spear and slowly killed with spear / mangonnels but at PUP beta, 5 idle camel archers at age 3 is able to tank at least 3 aoe hits by mangonnels,
Not to mentioned, fully upgrade (blacksmith) MAA (HRE and English) can’t get near a 10+ camel archers mass without losing most of their health.
Some might argue why spam MAA to get close to camel archers, all I can said is any spear-men mass with max full armor upgrade melts (even with very intensive micro / two players vs 1 player with camel riders mass) before even reaching them while the camel archer mass just sitting there shooting.
A more ridiculous situation happen when at late game (stalemate) situation, a 30+ camel riders can four shot any siege units which is ridiculous and this happen after all my infantry and archers/handcannon died barely scratching their hp to half.
of course I understand the developer does not intend to let player to mass camel archer units only.
but if both players (with similar skill gap and micro skill) are able to survive to ultra late game, I still find the player which mass a few camel rider can outlast any army compositions thrown at them unless the game is forced into the usual mass siege situation.
Right now I feel like the PUP camel riders are more powerful than Rus’s horse archer (game-launched version). However with current mp playstyle more favour into turtling with mass siege, I will assume this camel riders mass units can be countered with mass siege.
Since I am not very good at game and mostly play for fun, I do not know what can be suggested to tune this unit.
-The only thing I can think of is maybe increase the camel riders armor buff and cavalry debuff radios but reduce its armor?
-Or maybe tune this unit to be cavalry slaying unit only (with cavalry armor piercing buff) but no extra damage on infantry?
1 Like
I think your conclusions are more emotional than rational 
The Camel Archers defensive capabilities were not changed at all. So if “5 idle camel archers at age 3 is able to tank at least 3 aoe hits by mangonnels” - well, it’s exactly the same in the live version and it always has been that way as far as I know.
Their damage was increased by a bit (damage vs spear actually decreased!!!) and I actually agree that might make them to good universally, because they were already decent before. Now they should be somewhat even against archers for them same cost, so it’s hard to find a real counter. On the other sind they also don’t really hard counter anything - even spearmen (that’s what they counter best) win if they get close, same for melee cav units, despite the debuff. But they’re surely strong and mobile and will be even more a core part of the Abbasid army (well, that’s what the devs wanted I guess).
For Camel Riders: Yes, they became better against general units, but it’s not that they became crazy good. It’s more that they were completely useless before in that regard (fighting vs non cav units) and now they’re just bad, but not terrible. Good changes I think. Lancers will still do the job way better.
And that’s where I think your impressions are wrong again. In melee vs melee there’s not as much micro as in ranged vs melee, so it comes down to basic maths a lot more. Well, basic math clearly says Infantry wins against Camel Riders (no matter if Man at Arms or Spearmen) and it’s not a close fight. SO probably your numbers were a lot worse.
Remember a Camel Rider costs 240 ressources, which is quite a lot. That also brings me to the siege point. 30 Camel Riders cost 7200 ressources…that’s like 12 Mangonels. And cav is supposed to be good vs siege. So it’s completely expected that they can run in and destroy a bunch of siege in that numbers. Again: 30 lancers would have done the same and even better.
So I think the changes for those 2 units are probably fine. I’m just a bit worried (actually I’m pretty sure) that Abbasid as a whole is overtuned now, because they were already very strong before and they’re getting quite some buffs now.
1 Like
If you "feel this " it’s partly b/c u dont know what you’re talking about. Live verison of camel archers are STRONGER vs spearman than PUP version. The only buffs the camel archer gained was a speed boost and 2 base damage increase at a penalty of losing 6 bonus dmg vs spearman AND no longer receiving camel barding (+2/+2 armor).
disagree that camel riders are bad given the change to the cost of their upgrades AND the increase in base dps AND bonus dps. For as little as 675 resources in Castle Age you can get both Camel shielding (+3 melee armor) and camel barding (+2/+2 armor) which already puts your base armor (melee wise) superior to a lancer/knight BEFORE factoring in blacksmith. Also keep in mind Camel riders are light cav so not countered by crossbow, and camel riders have a hugge HP pool; believe they have the highest HP that isn’t a elephant? AND if you research speed they move near the base rate of horsemen.
270 HP
14 dmg per sec base
5 melee armor
2 range armor
1.87 speed
I can see that “bad” was too strong of a word. “Decent with a tendency to underwhelming” would probably be better - which puts them in a good spot, because they’re fast and amazing vs cav.
For as little as 0 ressources in Castle Age you get 4/4 armor, which makes Lancers A LOT more tanky vs arrow fire, while melee damage is often quite high anyway so that 4 or 5 armor doesn’t make too much of a difference vs most units.
Nice advertising, but that information is completely irrelevant, because both units would benefit from a blacksmith, so we can just ignore it for this conversation.
Good point!
Technically the Khan, some Siege units and basically all ships are higher, but I’d still say you’re correct 
I would at though that the difference between 230 and 270 (or 270/320) is quite a bit, but it’s also not as gigantic as you make it sound.
Everything factored in and even ignoring that the Camel Rider needs some more upgrades, I’d still say a lancer is slightly tankier than a Camel Rider (basically because a lot of damage in fights comes from arrows). But I will admit, that our conversation made me realize that it is a lot closer than I thought and an argument can definately be made for both being even or the Camel Rider being slightly tankier.
Good point as well.
So overall I would say Lancer and Camel Rider both have their place. Lancer is a bit better for universal usage, but Camel Rider should be quite a good unit and maybe good enough to completely replace Lancers for Abbasid - I lean more towards doubting that though and think if the enemy is heavier on archer units you can lancer, otherwise you go Camels. We will see 
So now, looking back “decent with a tendency to underwhelming” might still not be good enough - let’s go with “decent”
Thanks for your thoughts!