Hi, with the new indian civs and camel oriented DLC, I think it is time for mamelukes to receive a buff. The unit costs 85 gold and has way too many counters. Mamelukes gets countered by halbs, camels, skirms, archers, teutonic knights, huskarls, kamyuks. They have the most armor classes in the game making them weak to many units. Their main use is only against cavalry.
My proposition is to get rid of camels dealing bonus damage against them. It would widen the use case of the unit. Nearly all of the camel civs have access to halbs, archers, seige, skirms, camel archers, genosee crossbowman and many ways to counter this expensive unit.
Everytime I play saracens I would go for camels instead of mamelukes because it is always safer and better in every aspect. Not only it gets rid of two big counters (skirmishers and camels) but it is also easier to produce, way less expensive and has 40 more HP and has a faster movement speed.
When I try to pull out mamelukes I always lose the game even against what it is used against.
For example, when I play against franks mamelukes gets countered by throwing axemans with higher range and way less gold by being way more cost effective.
So when u look at the mameluke, they are camels so they receive +9 bonus damage from camels and they also have mamelukes armor class which they receive +7 bonus damage from camels.
Also they are camels but don’t deal any extra damage to camels. They are also slower than camels
Idea : make masdrash tech synergies monks and memlukes together. For example monks heals memlukes faster and from more range or monks healing memlukes generate gold. This would push micro nerd to consider this unit.
Nah the Mame is actually one of the best units in the game.
The problem for them is more how saracens are usually played and in which situation you want to make / mass them but most of the time just can’t make that transition.
Alos mames need a lot of attention and very unique micro, as there is no comparable unit in the game.
If you are capable of making the transition and make them work, mames are awesome.
Archer Armor- Cosindering their 0 pierce armor and their akward armor type they melt to any ranged unit, especially Skirms. Giving them pierce armor is definitely not the answer, it’d make them too unstoppable in post-Imp or TG situations. I’d leave the armor type yet adjust it by giving them a hidden +2 (or even +3) Archer Armor, just like Elephant Archers have -2. Skirms will end up doing 5 damage rather than 7.
Camels- The fact that Saracens have amazing Camels kinda kill the purposefullness from this unit, Mameluke have hard time to form a solid win condition even in a match up where they’re expected to shine. It takes me to the next issue.
Frame Delay + Attack Delay- In order to mass this unit you better start using them in Castle Age, considering Saracens eco it’s not that bizarre to end up with a Castle, however non-Elite Mameluke is awful to micro, having twice the delay the Elite one has. (0.4 > 0.2, 24 > 12). Making them too difficult to sustain a heavy micro play in early game. I’d just make it fixed 0.2 attack delay and 12 frame delay. Upgrading to Elite is still worthy enough.
Meta/“New” Arabia- Pretty much the reason we no longer see any Unique Unit as a viable strategy.
Yes, mamelukes should remains weak vs archer but agree 5 bonus to mamelukes is plenty enough. My main concern is camels. Because it is in fact a camel unit. it is already not viable to pull them off and mamelukes die very fast to camels. They receive 9+7 = 16 bonus damage from camels and they deal no bonus damage to camels while costing 25 gold more and being slower. Also as you mentioned the non unique version is very bad so massing them in castle age is even worse. But I don’t really care about that since saracens have good castle age camels so mamelukes should be an imp unit. Its just the fact that it’s useless to use mamelukes against camel civs shriking its use to only cav and even then who would take the risk to make mamelukes when the enemy have to many counters in play. Better off making camel and supporting it with trash/archers.
not really true about skirms. it still takes 3 skirms to kill one of these things. and frankly if your enemy is fielding that many skirms that they are a threat to your mamelukes, i wonder why you were fielding mamelukes to begin with. and if you forced them to switch to skirms, congrats, you are winning.
and then this.
if your opponent is making halbs, why are you making mamelukes in the first place? same with Archers, TK, Huskarls and Kamayuks? also skirms only counter them with over 2 to 1 odds. if they are investing that much pop space into skirms, a few hussars mixed into your army will make them melt. and every infantry unit can be microed against and the mameluke will win those fights.
so your opponent can afford Heavy Cavalry + Throwing Axeman and you can only afford mamelukes? me thinks your story has some holes.
by the way - you last year said pros never make mamelukes - i invite you to watch teh rage forest tournament where they see use.
I want to be honest, I actually think Mames are the best unit in the game. They are only hindered by the inconvenience to mass them and the hard micro. They pair perfectly with siege, are fast and extremely pop efficient.
I don’t understand why some people call them “memelukes”, cause Mames+Siege is one of the strongest comps in the game. It’s not their power or that they would be overcountered or whatever that holds them back. It’s just strategically inconvenient + the micro thing.
So if we want to “fix” mames, we should maybe make a concept for the civ in mind what situations you would like to make that transition and what currently is “in the way”.
Like if you standardly open archers spears you face already skirms against many cavalry civs. And Camels do better against skirms than mamelukes. So… maybe the classification as archer is indeed not so clever in this context.
In the exchange their HP could be reduced slightly, cause this is imo one of the reasons why they have the potential to be one of the best units in the game.
ONe Idea could also be that with Madrassah Monks could generate Gold while healing. That could reduce the Gold load of the Saracen army in 1v1s. But would make it possibly even harder to use that army comp to best success.
You asked why throwing and gbetos dont have archer armor. Its because they cant run from counters and utterly decimate them the way mamelukes can with pikes.
U need 63% more Throwing axeman which cost 40g which is more than 50% lower gold cost than the mameluke itself. Franks don’t need to add any heavy cav.