At first glance, it may looks a tiny bonus, at least in feudal, but koreans also have the wood discount bonus to go for archer rush.
Do you think this will make koreans more agressive or they will use it for defending with skirms?
A mix of both. Good for defense. As well as a possible archer rush. Plus, the resources saved from the blacksmith could be used for other things, like investing more into your economy instead.
Well, I account their stone gathering bonus (usually forgotten in this forum when talking about eco bonuses) for this purpose… You use 1-2 less villagers in stone and allocate them in farms. Not much, but honest work.
A mix of both. Supposing the Koreans player wants to take full advantage of the wood discount, I see free armor being more useful for Skirmishers. The Skirmisher discount saves 21 wood for every 3 Skirmishers over 66 seconds of training time, which is enough to take one Villager off of wood. But 2 Archers save 10 wood over 70 seconds of creation time, making Skirmishers the better wood saver. Overall, with the wood discount and Fletching fully upgrading Korean Feudal Skirmishers, it ought to be easy for Koreans to have an annoying Skirmisher/Spearman army that can harass long enough to build full walls and defensive towers.
Though in my opinion, I think the bigger half of the new armor bonus shall be for War Wagons. Who knows how unit stats will change. But with current unit stats, the new armor bonus would mean War Wagons start with 2 melee, 5 pierce armor. It might be a big enough boost to make a War Wagon opening the default Korean Castle Age strategy.
Interesting. Just today I have seen a Daut’s match in which he used byzantines skirms army almost exclusivelly while doing fast imperial.
It was fun to see 20 skirms shooting at knights.
Another unit benefitted from the armor upgrade is HC. He wont need any more upgrades after imperial.
I am wondering about CA. It costs 40 wood, although korean one lacks bloodlines and parthian tactics. Could CA be useful in early castle age for raiding with free armor upgrades, after thumbring?
They can now do a byzantine trash rush, 5 eskirms with armor can kill twice the xbows with ease.
War Wagons will be more appealing with that bonus
I personally think it’s a rather small bonus. You still want the blacksmith up asap if you go archers or skirms, as you need fletching.
I think this change makes it impossible to archer rush koreans, since they can now defend with a single range no blacksmith skirms. You have to spend 500 res on buildings, 150 res on fletching and, say, 700 res on units. Koreans only need 1 archery range and 7-8 skirms in response, which is less than 800 resources.
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Good notice is trushing them or Scout rushing them will work very effectively
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I’d have to see that one in action myself. Though if it’s just for raiding, then at least I don’t see a reason for why not before seeing it in action. War Wagon means a heavy wood and gold economy anyway, so mixing in a handful of Cavalry Archers ought to be easy. Maybe Skirmisher/War Wagon/Cavalry Archer could become a potent late Castle combo. Put Skirmishers with War Wagons for anti-Spear/Skirmisher support to force fights while Cavalry Archers run around for raiding.
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Small but wellcome. Still useful while archer rushing.
And some people suspect elite turtle ship will be buffed.
This, together with other possible buffs (HC, CA) can be very nice even when their towers’ range are nerfed (although i suspect they may buff keeps)
However, these are still to be confirmed…
To be fair, I think we could have even given them free archer attack upgrades instead. It’s a big buff, but koreans right now are struggling so much that I think we could justify that. Anyway, we also need to see what else they changed, maybe some units have been buffed and koreans will be better. Hope so.
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Free archer attack upgrades would have affected their towers too, leaving them almost as before with the leaked tower nerf.
Maybe they nerfed towes because thwy tested free fletching, but changed to free armor upgrades because it was OP and thus towers got nerfed?
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That would be about as much as all of the Frank bonuses combined except for cheaper castles. Franks have extra 150 res because they finish berries faster, save 250 res from bloodlines, and 400 res from free farm upgrades (crap rotation doesn’t count, it’s useless). Free archer attack upgrades is 950 resources, plus no need for blacksmith in feudal, and quite impotantly, those are crucial upgrades, that you will get 100% of the time instantly, provided you use anything ranged. Free armor is different, because it’s a low priority upgrade, so it doesn’t necessarily gives you such a massive “effective” resource lead.
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Agreed. Has anyone seen their tech tree though?
Free archer armour is quite a small buff (especially considering the twr nerf and Bulgarians massive buff) means there’s likely a tech tree buff as well? Maybe hopefully finally blood lines? Or something…
I don’t know man… Unless they buff CA considerably, you’re still getting a CA with 30% less hp and still paying 60g for em… I don’t think wood is the limiting factor in producing early CA… And they pretty much dead end for mperial due to lack of bloodlines…
But here’s to hoping Koreans finally get bloodlines…
I dont think thet will give bloodlines to them.
With bloodlines their hussars would be less laughable, ok, but in castle their knights in would be OK and their warwagon would be scary (specially with the free armor upgrades).
How is that bonus small? I think it’s pretty huge. Getting armor ealry on in feudal age is rather difficult so Koreans will have a time window where they basically win vs every other archers. It’s also pretty nice strategy-wise beacuse it allows for quite a variety of options like you can chose between making blacksmith after first range and keep upgrade advantage or go second range and have better numbers with defensive upgrade so you can push opponent back to his tc. Also defending with skirms is gonna be way easier with that. I assume it would force a lot of civs (that might go archers otherwise) into scouts.
Also having the second armor for free is nice because usually it’s too expensive in early castle age but the key really is the first upgrade in feudal (at least on arabia). There is a good reason why no civ has been given free archer attack or armor to this point so I’m exited to see how Koreans with that will fare (if it’s implemented) because I expect them to have a very powerful archer opening. Long-term I don’t see a lot of changed for Koreans but their early-game gains a huge potential for aggressive gameplay.
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In defense: Small because it only affects archer build orders in feudal. The bonus has little effect defending against goths or scout rushes, although is very good aganist archer civs.
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In aggression: An korean still has no significant eco bonus for an archer rush (wood discount is very little for archer’s little wood cost), so if they start attacking an enemy in feudal with archers means that the enemy didnt attack before…
In those cases it is a good bonus, but pretty niche. at least in feudal.
In team games, if korean mass archers they can have a big powerspike in castle age (upgrading archers with ballistics, thumbring, crossbows and free armor upgrade)
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