That’s byzantines. Gurjaras get only food discount and that too after building a castle and doing the UT.
civ doesn’t even have pikes. If that bonus is removed altogether, civ will simply die to Camel-crossbows.
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you know that halbs hit only every 3 secs while camels hit every 2 sec?
Then camels are cavalry and more expensive units. As cav they have more hp and therefore take longer to kill. It’s just how the game is designed.
I also expect from more expensive units that they are more tanky.
Another thing is ofc that halbs are a bit OP if they are FU. But they probably need to cause of the pop efficiency of the units they counter.
Nevertheless bec of the 2 points before your measuring method is kinda flawed. There is also a soft factor involved cause in mass battles you would have many more halbs than camels fighting each others which leads to a lot of pathing which slows down the fight also. (halbs are also way slower)
So even if we ignore these factors pikes need 42 secs to kill each other and camels would need 40.
Halbs 27 secs vs heavy camels 36.
It would be generally comparable.
Well as a defender you can then just add some skirms first to deal with the archers and then add scouts or even maa to clean up the skirms. I see absolutely no problem there.
Actually the opposite, it would make the game way more diverse cause then the typical converge to full skirm play in archer v archer battles would be stopped.
I would just give skirms +2 archer armor. Camels no bonus vs camels anymore I would actually reduce the damage output of camel archers so they become indeed more an anti-cav archer role. Imo it’s weird that berbers have both super cheap cavalry and also one of the best cav archer units in the game that also counters other cav archers. I think with 42 civs in the game it’s a bit too much for one civ. Alternatively the camel archer could ofc just get the cavalry armor class like the other cav archer units.
And camels could just get a bit more bonus damage vs mamelukes. This armor class already exists and mames receive bonus damage from both the camel and mame armor class currently. It’s no problem to just shift this.
It’s really not that complicated to implement in a way it has only marginal influence in the game to other units. And yes it would solve the issue with the clear “order” in camel v camel battles where some civs just dominate cause of their better camel bonusses.
This behaviour, again, is a side effect of the camel counters camel thing.
And no, I don’t accept the positivistic “it’s so in the game for years now, let’s don’t change it cause we are used to it”. A lot of stuff has changed for less relevant reason in gameplay.
Or does anybody here like the convergese of archer civ matchups towards full skirm play and camel civs matchups towards full camel play? Mirroring army comps are always very boring and then snowbally matches cause it often needs only 1 battle from that it turns into a lopside.
No because if you are the aggressor archer skirm will be stronger than before while in the defensive position skirm will be weaker. I think it’ll just produce snowbally games where one player can get a huge advantage with ranged units while the other player is forced into scouts which are pretty useless at this point except for clearing up skirms that are just there to annoy.
You know how people put single xbows behind woodlines in castle age sometimes? I bet this happens with skirms in feudal in your scenario. And behind that they just full wall their own base and strats might even get more dimensional because everyone playa that one single strat.
But that wouldn’t remove the bonus dmg just reduce it.
I don’t see the issue with that. Maybe for gurjaras but that can addressed by balance. You basically have the same scenario for archer civs. And sometimes there are matchups that are bad late game which force one player to go aggressive earlier which is a good thing.
Besides positivism describing something completely different (what you mean here would be conservatism): Accept it or not there is a good reason the units deal bonus dmg to each other (see my last post) which is why that shouldn’t be changed. I very much welcome well thought out changes to the game but changing stuff arbitrarily because why not and mess up balance is the worst thing you can do to the game.
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This makes absolutely no sense.
If you are the agressor you usually don’t make only skirms. Cause skirms do almost no damage to loomed vills.
No the agressor usually opens archers and then adds skirms to deal with the defensive skirms currently. This wouldn’t be useful then cause the skirms of the agressor wouldn’t kill the defensive skirms anymore.
I think you’re stuck in an alternative reality here. Maybe sometimes archer matchups just converge to that full skirm v skirm play and when skirms with fletching in high enough numbers can be very annoying, but that’s only the result of the skirm v skirm interaction. This wouldn’t happen anymore with the proposed change.
In feudal it’s equivalent with removing it, it’s just for later stages of the game so skirms deal enough damage vs each other to snowball. Otherwise there could be matchups where 30 skirms hold vs 60 skirms or something like this in trash wars. Also it would encourage to get the tech advantage if the game really converges to a full skirm play what I don’t expect it to.
It’s for all camel civs, that’s why indians also formerly dominated camel civ matchups. (Maybe their camels weren’t the strongest in midgame but they have a really strong eco bonus to get more numbers and in the lategame the imp camel is just super strong).
If the game has this kind of design flaw even smallest bonusses to certain units can make huge differences. If you compare the hindustani or gurjara bonusses to what other civs get for their units (byz 25 % discount to trash (!!!), berbers 15-20% discount to cav, mayans discount, goth discount, britons range, eth rof…) These bonusses of gurjara and hindustanis look actually kinda mediocre. Yet they lead to lopside matchups cause camels have this explained design flaw.
Games tend to converge to only camel play and then ofc every little bonus can make an insane difference.
I just watched a few gurjara plays to see how they are played on higher levels. One match I saw was a gurjara mirror. In the game both players made almost only camels, almost 200 each.
There was one big battle mid game where one player had also some monks (which is basically the only justificable addition cause monks need no upgrades) and from this on the game was just snowball. The opponent never recovered from that.
Without that bonus damage we could have seen probably some spears but also longswords or even shakrams (though shakrams become kinda useless after frontier guards). That would have been way more interesting.
Or you disagree with that?
Which? That the game then converges to just these units mirror play until one big battle decides the game?
Did you even read my explanation? You seem to avoid talking about it. Argument by ignorance of reasoning is really bad for a healthy discussion.
Gurjaras mirrors are only camels because they have not even pikemen and the imp UT makes it so that none of their other melee unit can scratch camels. And they don’t have arbs. Removing camel bonus damagz against themselves would make the whole deal worse because then even their camels would only deal 2 damage to each other.
The impact on other civs would be that instead of letting whoever has the most camels win, whoever has the best halbs win. Like sure Byz and Hindustani won’t mind, but good luck if you’re Malians or Gurjaras.
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Ofc you don’t go skirms only. As I wrote you go archer and then add skirms. This play is already the better approach if both player go 1 range (full skirm is only better vs double range opening). Once your archers cannot deal dmg anymore because of eneny skirm numbers you use couple of skirms you probably made to annoy your opponent and get to castle age earlier.
The idea of having skirms as aggressor isn’t to kill to defensive skirms bit to sponge dmg from them so you can camp resources to idle enemy eco or use them as meatshield so your archers kill skirms. Without constantly microing archer skirm will beat skirm here so agressor can abuse that.
Coming from the guy who wants to hard nerf skirms and camels to buff xbow and knight play because in the what in your reality these are too weak?
You still would have 1 bonus dmg on top of one regular dmg.
The only other camel civ here is berbers. And in case of hindustani mirror you have other options to play. So you want to change camel bonus dmg because of gurjaras mirror and gurjaras/hindustanis vs berbers? And even in these matchups you do have options with UU for example. You just need to pressure then before opponent has all upgrades/techs for camel units.
Yes because nobody is gonna make longswords or spears here. If the engagement isn’t favorable to you you run away with camels and make xbows vs infantry and keep your camels safe to go full camel in imp again. That applies irrespective of if you have camels dealing bonus dmg to each other or not.
The fact that you nerf counter units. Skirm will be useless you stop focus targeting single enemy units because then xbow skirm will beat skirm only.
I did read it but think it’s a bad argument (see above). I mean you were the one who didn’t reply to my core argument 11
Gurjaras have their eco bonus and can start producing camels earlier and malians have their militia line that is super tanky vs archers.
I actually several times proposed buffs to especially skirms. Buff skirms especially vs archers so they have higher damage output but less armor. Thing is this isn’t the subject of this thread.
I also don’t think that change is a “nerf” cause it only changes how they interact when fightig themselves not other units. It’s a tweak.
Yeah I had this misconception also at some time, how the damage calc is actually is that if it’s 1 bonus damge but all other damage sources are 0 it takes only that 1 bonus damage, not 2.
I would actually.
I always use my lower numbers of skirms try to pick of enemy archers and try to makro up to castle. Then I can add siege or knights to clean up the remaining skirms of the opponent.
This wouldn’t even change a bit. The thing that would change is that the more agressive player probably wouldn’t even add some skirms or if only a few as arrow soaker if he expects you to not be able to focus fire… But that’s gambling.
That’s absurd. Even without focus fire skirm only will counter xbow skirm. But yeah focus fire probably would make an even bigger difference. I think that’s only a good thing.
Cause this kind of skill scales with elo. So at our level or above it would reduce the power of archer play whilst at lower levels archers probably would become more viable.
What is your argument? again?
And again you haven’t responded to my points. Do you like the current meta that games with these civs tend to converge massing just these one unit types? I mean even in a knigh v knight matchup you usually see a mix of knight + pikes.
The argument is that knights will do more dmg vs camels than camels to each other just as archers will do more dmg to skirms than skirms to each other. So your counter unit isn’t a counter unit anymore unless you focus target your opponents units which isn’t always possible. You put some skirms in front of archers and your opponents skirms will lose hard. Briton archers especially won’t be counterable by skirms. And camel vs camel knigjt is an rng based fight. If your camels atk camels instead of knights your supposable counter unit will lose hard.
That’s my argument why your change is bad. And that’s also why your argument about changing the meta isn’t true imo. Instead of fielding different units your changes will just produce more snowbally games where the one that plays meta and gets the upperhand will win because the meta counters to the meta play won’t be good anymore. All your suggestion does it force the player who is on the backfoot to try some off meta counters.
In short you don’t solve any problems but you create a lot of new ones.
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Hold on why are you telling me that the solution for Gurjaras is to churn out more camels earlier? I thought this whole deal was to reduce camel spam? And if Malian militia line was able to handle camels + archer then surely people would know about it? Then there is the lack of blast furnace that makes them not even this good at killing camels after a certain point.
Are you sure about that? Did you really look at the Gurjara tech tree?
N2m malian militia play would be much much more common.
Malains usually prefer to have the militia line their final main unit.
In the midgame there are often too many counters (knights, scorpions…) available and they cost too much food generally. But in the matchup vs camels (+usually archery) they make total sense.
I actually would like to see more inf play from malians. I understand why some people here seem to hate infantry so much.
Yes, I think it’s their best option to counter camels. It’s not a super great option but it counters them, so why not? If they are supposed to never use these units, why do they have even access to them?
Your “problems” are extremely constructed and your arguments don’t fit with my game knowledge. I think you just don’t like the idea of teching into something new to deal with the counter units. But this is your personal thing, not something inherit to the game.
It’s already pracicable to tech into scouts or later knights to deal with leftover skirms or low amount of archers that herass you. Like it or not, but it’s how the game works.
OK so upon reading that I thought “If kts kill themsleves slow enough to motivate players to add pikes then surely you need to compare that to camels to find the sweetspot”. So I did my research, which gives, assuming all relevant upgrades are in:
Castle age kts kill each other in 25 sec, 22 for camels
Imp cavaliers kill each other in 21 seconds, heavy camels in 14 seconds
So since camels kill each other significantly faster than kts do only after the heavy upgrade, then surely the problem would only arise in imp, not in castle right? And why is it only camel civs and not say, Chinese or Turks?
The answer is quite obvious: it depends on the tech tree. Chinese mirrors don’t devolve into mass camels because they have halbs, arbs and chu ko nu. If Hindustanis still had arbs there would probably be an arbs/ghulam/camel triangle going on, etc. None of the “camel spam mirror” civs want to invest in foot archers or spears for too long, and trying to change that would mess them up against non camel civs or mess up some units.
Anti-eagles duties. And the upgrade to 2HS is to keep the Persian’s uniqueness I suppose and wouldn’t your reasoning mean that we have to find a use for Tatars 2HS then?
Aren’t the situations he describes quite common? And even if with ranged units you can always say “micro harder”, you can’t really say the same with a melee brawl where everyone has more or less the same speed.
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If it was my personal thing why didn’t anyone think of your suggestion before and why do those units do bonus dmg to each other then in the first place? Tbh I find ot quite amusing that you propose stuff that at least to me sounds super weird and not well reasoned to just continue by saying people live in an alternate reality once you don’t have a counter argument. And if you want to go down “compare game knowledge route” (which basically only works by comparing elo) although I don’t think this is the way to go here I’m very happy to do so.
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Yeah that’s a very good question. I ask this to myself for years now.
For me it’s super weird that units counter themselves. Really.
But it also makes no sense in an rts game cause it leads to exactly that behaviour of mono-unit comps.
It’s actually you that doesn’t have an argument. You just say you don’t want it to be changed. The points you bring forward are heavily constructed.
Just for example when you say you would add skirms as a meatshield. First that’s not as easy to micro as you say. Against an microing opponent you would be forced to constantly reposition your skirms and archers. And if he micros properly he could make it really hard for your archers to hit anything.
Also if you micro that much, how do you assume that the opponent isn’t capable of just microing down your archers first? ^^ Really that’s something anybody at higher level of aoe2 should know, that this is the highest priority when playing skirm v archers+skirms and being outnumbered.
And if they are only as meatshield then you could also just add militia or scouts vs skirms they would do that job even better. With less effort in micro. And you could still produce archers from your ranges.
Just one example where your arguments just don’t make any sense.
But this is really annoying for me and also leads to nothing to “counter” this kind of arguments. I did it now just for once, but I won’t do it again cause I don’t like to play “fact checker”. I’m no moron.
No the reason I transition into skirms is if I see an opponent making 1 range skirms while trying to macro up and I already have 2 ranges I can outspam his skirms, kill his skirms and then still have my archers to damage his eco.
And this wouldn’t be viable if skirms wouldn’t counter skirms.
Edit: Maybe for feudal skirms it would already be eough if they had just 1 archer armour and elite skirms then 2. The upgrade to elite skirm is so expensive you should get something for your bucket. Then skirms would still d more damage vs other skirms than archers but it could be enough to diversify the archery v archery matchup in feudal.
But why? It’s just very straightforward, if a unit has bonus damage against a category of units and is included in said category then it deals bonus damage to itself. It’s the opposite that would be quite confusing.
What’s wrong with that? Stuff is countered by more stuff, nothing new. If you paid for two ranges + skirm production from both aren’t you the one who is already investing more anyway, as the enemy could spend the res you spent on the second archery range on a stable instead, then the res you spent on more skirms on scouts? Why is it right for the player with more units and military buildings already to have to add even more investment to counter just one building?
yeah what could be wrong with the counter to unit x is more unit x?
I mean why don’t we play knight vs more knight every game?
Because they all have other counters as well.
right.
there is a reason for that.
adn don’t try to dodge with shifting perception angle. you know what I was talking about.
Your “argument” is jsut advetising single unit matchups. As if we wouldn’t have too strong metaplay.
Why the heck do you like skirm v skirm and camel v camel?
Why do we even have this high unit diversity if games then converge to single unit matchups?
Let’s just make it all knight v knight only, that’s all we need then.
Gurjaras is bad designed civ. I would change this to fix its problem:
- Military units cost -20% in Castle (remove Castle Age Unique tech).
- Mounted unit bonus atttack nerfed from +50% → +33%.
- Civ gains Pikeman.
- Chakram Thower piercing ability is removed, its cost 65f 20g, 6. 8 (elite) attack, 6, 7 (range), training time 10s.
- Castle Age Unique tech gives Chakram Thrower ballistics.
skrims have a bonus vs skrims
camels have a bonus vs camels
mangonels, rams, bombard cannons, siege elephants have bonus vs themselves
galleys, fireships and demos do as well
samurai, jaguar warrior, mameluk, and a bunch of other unique units do too. so why single out camels?