I’ve tried using mamulukes twice now and I just can’t see them as a viable unit. What is your guys opinion? It seems like they are just glass cannons being weak to everything except meelee mounted. I find them so difficult to use, is there a hidden army comp I don’t know of that they are good to pair with? I would suggest they make Mamelukes good Vs infantry as well, it’s terrible that as a gold intensive unit they do so bad Vs all cheap trash units. They seem like they should be similar to arambai as they both ranged meelee I believe and arambai cheaper way faster to make and arambai does way better Vs inf, I find the frame delay way less on arambai making them easier to use. Only thing that Mameluke do better than arambai is killing siege but since Mameluke has such poor range they can’t get close to siege especially considering their weakness to pikes also makes them bad at that too. I never see Mamelukes being played in a single game before and was thinking of a strategy involving them the other day but none seemed good to me. Any thoughts?
Well, mamelukes did well in this scenario
They do bad against ranged units, but kill pretty much everything else. They’re kinda micro intensive, maybe. But you can mix them witj either skirmishers or husssars, to deal wih enemies archers /skirms.
I won’t say Mamelukes are a go-to counter against range units, nor they are very cost-effective, but I don’t think they do bad.
Sure they lack range, but with Bloodlines and Zealotry they have a good amount of HP, plus they are pretty fast. Moreover most units tend to have more pierce armor than melee armor, so Mamelukes hit harder than one might think.
They don’t do SUPER bad, but Mamelukes are hard to mass, so it’s better not to trade them against archers/skrims, when you can virtually wipe out endless armies of cavalry and infantry witha good group of them
Mamelukes are not viable since the delay their introduced during the rise of rajas, also there is no point in picking them since you know someone in the other team might pick indians and imperial camels destroys the mamelukes so easy.
Well we can translate it into numbers… Skirms kill FU mamelukes in only 19 hits. Arbs kill them in 22. Due to the 12 frame delay and terrible range even a skirm can almost fire off 2 shots before a mameluke attacks.
In comparison arbs kill cavaliers in 35 hits. And champs in 16 hits.
Cavaliers are 1/4 cheaper to tech (elite upgrade, zealotry) and much faster /easier to mass than mamelukes due to castles.
Champs are literally 1/4 the gold price of a mameluke.
And this isn’t even considering the paladin
According to these numbers i would say mamelukes are bad vs range. And i will happily fight you with arbs and waste your gold.
Ive already made a thread about how bad these things are. They way too expensive. Too hard countered by skirms due to their low range, all other short range melee are not listed as archers. Need too much tech and time. Imo they are balanced around the old slow game.
In particular they suck too much vs eagles.
Mmm considering that they have now a lot more weakness that before (frame delay, archer armor) I think that they could sensibly lower the gold cost (they are the most gold intense non-siege units).
Like if you bring it to 65/70g you can make them as a fast and more efficient counter unit.
Mamelukes are a bit of an awkward unit
It’s one of the cases where fully upgraded (in both castle an imp but mainly imp) they shred most things but as a result it’s not that viable to use them before that
I do like having them up my sleeve when I play saracens and because some of the imp upgrades are cheap (in terms of being imp upgrades) you can market abuse into them off a decent boom, so say like I committ to archers in castle into arb, but then knights and skirms come out, bam I already have a handful of fully upgraded mamelukes
Additionally, they’re decent vs pikes/halbs but obviously takes micro and you need a lot of them.
Given that we have an armor piercing knight unit that’s better than a knight in every way and costs 40 gold a pop, I don’t see why mamelukes can’t have their cost decreased
Arbalests and Mamelukes. Fucking unstoppable, pretty sure it was called the saracen deathball before. Obviously very expensive so not viable in 1v1s (unless you have a lot of gold control, and if you do you’re usually already winning), or they may be viable in small size, but they’re a team game sledgehammer. Someone also mentioned skirm mameluke and mameluke hussar, both of which are also very good.
Nahh that’s way too next level mind gaming in a hidden civ situation, and Saracens are a lot more versatile than Indians anyways with their arbs, siege options, etc. Imperial camels are amazing but it’s not that big of a onesided win since zealotry heavy camel exists. Indians beat them one on one, but the game isn’t about one on one fights and sars have a lot of ways to snowball their advantages
Saracens do not have Cavaliers precisely so they are forced into Heavy Camels and Mamelukes.
I really hope this unit gets some noticeable buffs, they are among some of the most unique unique units what do you guys reckon would be a good way to balance them to be more viable? I was thinking maybe make their UT work to give back 30% of Mameluke gold cost also
They always had the archer armor. I agree they should reduce the cost
Really… eh probably you are right…
All mamelukes need is a slightly reduced cost. Maybe 60/65
Its a balancing mechanism against the fact that they can literally outmicro one of their normal counters in pikes
It’s better 65, so that they at least cost a bit more than a standard camel, which is fair since they are better at counter cavalry.
Better against almost everything
True, but since they still require a castle, I think that it’s fair that they cost just a bit more.
I would like to add a disclaimer
*in big groups and with max tech
Because in smaller numbers and without all their tech, their squishyness is too much compared to a normal heavy camel thus reducing their effectiveness against a number of targets
Don’t forget a castle age mameluke has almost half the base hp of a camel and a whopping high frame delay
I might even go ao far to say in castle age camels are better than mamelukes
This is one of the best units in the game imo.They die to trash yes, but paladins too. Micro and pick your fights and add a meatshield as @OliveCereal4714 said.