I think the reason why they give free archer armor upgrade is because of the theme of Defensive civilization. In this sense they will probably not giving bloodine for CA play.
Wood discount for Siege is a good idea for Defensive theme. But the compensation maybe increase the cost of imp UT which is aim for offending but not defending. In an extreme way they may also take away the Siege Engineers but give imp UT +2 range.
So I agree with what you thought is that, maybe just keep them as they are, they are not that bad in general.
I definitely agree with people who are saying that bloodlines is not the way to go, since it effects too many other units. But would the civ be that op if they had the last armour upgrade instead of hussars? Right now it feels like a dead tech to me in almost every situation.
Even at low levels Koreans are sitting at around 45% winrate. At higher levels its like 46%. If thats not ābad in generalā what is your idea of bad?
Their cav archers would still be only above average with bloodlines. Wouldnāt be q big buff.
Why? The point of a buff is to make the civ better. Nothing ive seen says they need to lose armor on top of a buff.
Please consider the Slav bonus. We shouldnāt make wood discounts significantly cheaper for Korean siege weapons.
When we make the wood discount for siege weapons, like the discount is a fixed number I stated before, then the amount of discount that siege weapons can get should be negligible. Land units - 10 wood is very good for archers and skirmishers, but has little effect on siege weapons. The benefit of the fixed number is that it feels good to have bonuses that can benefit all units, with no exceptions.
I also donāt think the Korean cavalry that appears in the very few high lv games has anything to do with their buff. Even the Dravidians donāt have the BBC, they are still possible to win the game, so donāt they need the BBC? The use of Korean cavalry is indeed an unexpected strategy, but they are still a disproportionately weak and almost useless side of the civ.
When other aspects of a civ are good enough, it makes sense to improve the shortcomings than to keep strengthening those strengths, and I think other aspects of the Koreans are good enough. Of course we could just leave the Koreans alone, but if we need to buff the Koreans one day, then maybe itās time to buff their cavalry.
Iāve mentioned this in other threads, first try to get WWs -10 HP, Elite WWs -20 HP, but let them keep some siege damage.
The Castle Age, when WWs can most pressure opponents, can even get a chance for a bit better advantage after more price, but it doesnāt affect the balance in the late game.
Without Parthian tactics, their CA still need not be worried. And if having no bloodlines, the stable units have almost no chance to be used except betting on the negligence of the opponents.
Interesting, do you have a source? I searched online but could only find the same picture and some others like it of wargames miniatures - no actual information. (Although I did find a blog claiming that flails were exclusively an infantry weapon, mostly used by peasants and never by cavalry!)
This seems a bit obtuse to me. Korean cavalry is arguably too weak, and your suggestion is to nerf not only their knights, but the knights of every other East Asian civ?
Yeah, Koreans are definitely in the running for a small-medium buff as far as Iām concerned. I donāt think giving them bloodlines is optimal because it makes their Feudal/Castle Age about as flexible as Japanese, whereas Koreans have always been a fairly specialized civ, and Japanese have always been flexible (since BL anyway).
I definitely think Korean cav archers should be better though. Iām pretty warm to the idea of giving them Parthian tactics, but having it not apply to WWs. Or perhaps one of their UTs could (also) buff CAs in a small way as well.
Iām thinking blast furnace could do a lot to help them with their cavalry and infantry simultaneously. With missing blast furnace, they only get 1 fully upgraded trash unit, but with it they would have 2, while also making hussars a lot more powerful at least in melee. To test if this would be well received, they could put it in a Pup and make the change if it is liked, and if it isnāt, they could do something different.
Their imperial UT is already a bit overpriced in my opinion.
If you want a defensive Buff, they could have free fortified walls in line with their free tower upgrades, which also would fit their history as a hermit Kingdom. This would do nothing in arabia but would improve their winrates in arena and blackforest a bit more Maybe they just doesnt need to be good in arabia if they shine in closed and water maps
Or just buff bombard towers (although this would be a late buff and they nay need an earlier one) because having them for free it is almost useless.
Other defensive buffs that doesnt fit their tower identity would be a slight faster production of skirms and spears.
if you do this then i think you need to make it cheaper. because the current advantage is you can stagger the costs, so you dont have such a power dip when teching. this is also a big nerf to the rest of their siege(especially trebs and BBC), and you actually arent compensating, youāre giving the exact same range unless this goes to +3.
so unless this tech is cheap its a net nerf, and even more so on open maps
you do realise thereās a handful of civs with worse cavā¦ and on top of that the WW fulfils a similar role to melee cav in numerous situations
finally giving them BL just adds to the generic soup of civs. its a big buff unless they lose hussar, and if they lose hussar they end up with the exact same LC as a number of civs. im not saying they dont deserve it but i dont see any justification for such a big buff
i think siege discount still fits thematically better than adding BL, this discount is still worth less than slavs, and slavs have the farming eco on top of it, and still arent a top tier civ. but might need a compensation in the WW, others people that already complain about WW will have even more reason to
Interesting, do you have a source? I searched online but could only find the same picture and some others like it of wargames miniatures - no actual information. (Although I did find a blog claiming that flails were exclusively an infantry weapon, mostly used by peasants and never by cavalry!)
I believe the first source in East Asia mentioning flail as a cavalry weapon dates back to the 1044 AD Song Dynasty military encyclopedia Wujing Zongyao, which said āthe northwestern barbarians (the Tanguts) used flails on horseback, but our people had used flails as a farming tool for a long time hence our cavalrymen used it better than our enemyā. And the first recorded battle of flail cavalry occurred in 1053 AD in Southern China between the Song Dynasty and Nong Zhigao (a local Tai-Kradai tribal leader who rebelled against the Song), and sources claimed that the flail cavalry of the Song decimated Nongās infantry in that battle. Subsequently, the usage of flail as a cavalry weapon had spread to the Jurchens/Manchus, the Koreans, and the Mongols. Iām less certain about its usage in Japan and Vietnam though.
This seems a bit obtuse to me. Korean cavalry is arguably too weak, and your suggestion is to nerf not only their knights, but the knights of every other East Asian civ?
Iām not talking about nerfing their knights, Iām talking about the stats of a potential East Asian regional unit called the Flail Rider as a replacement for their knights (cause East Asia never had knights in history). I suggested its stats to be slightly weaker than a regular knight, but it has a slight anti-infantry or anti-spearman bonus to compensate.
Yes and yes. As I said, Iād be apprehensive about giving them Bloodlines. I totally agree about not wanting to make them more generic.
Iād be ok with extending the wood siscount to siege weapons. But my suggestion would be to give them back +1 range to Mangonels/Onagers, as a civ bonus, and make Villagers +3 line of sight the team bonus (and make it require a Town Centre on nomad maps). But Iām sure someone will tell me that Castle Age Mangonels with 8 range would be overpowered. (I guess it could be hard for the other civs with bad cavalry to counter them.)
What I mean is, if you replace their Knights with something weaker than Knights, youāre effectively nerfing their Knights! I get that they have bonus damage against infantry, but East Asian civs donāt really have problems with infantry anyway since they have such good archers.