You are absolutely wrong, sorry to say it that clearly.
Even if Mangos “only” did massive dmg against ranged units, how are you gonna counter a mix of MAA, spearmen and Mangos?
You won’t be able to!
Cav can’t engage, springalds can’t reach the springs and crossbows will be blasted away by Mangos.
Same for mango+jan, there won’t be any way to counter it anymore once springald shots can be bodyblocked.
Mangos massively beat crossbows (counter to knights and maa), massively beat archers (counter to jans), spearmen+jans in small numbers already make it impossible to attack the mangos with cavalry.
And probably absolutely worst for Nest of Bees.
A few clocktower Nob+spears and a few palace guards and you can resign in 1v1.
Your changes combined would be absolutely devastating for 1v1 balancing and even worse for lategame team-mates, as you’ll see only Ottoman spamming GB.
I was originally planning to not only lower the mangonel’s base damage but also its bonus against ranged units, but Beasty claimed that the mangonel should be a counter to ranged units; I’m all for lowering all of the mangonel’s damage. https://youtu.be/UeqicP_SptY?si=meZPn0e5De5xnZPW&t=450
The damage drop on the mangonel would make it vulnerable to men-at-arms, and mangonel spamming would be a waste since the siege’s hp is already low.
Since you already linked Beasty’s video, he said he’d just increase the pop-use for siege, which could be the answer.
Your idea of moving some of the base dmg of Mangos into a vs ranged bonus, is legit, imo.
Though, making springalds get shot-blocked would just destroy any kind of chance to fight against siege.
It would make the Mango situation worse by a million times, as you could only counter Mangos in Imperial age with culvs and not many civs can train these.
Horsemen and knights are often times not an answer to Mangos, as a few spears/crossbows can fend off knights very cost-effectively and a few spears/maa super-hardcounter horsemen cost effectively, while the Mangos deal with all the backline.
A solution would be, giving horsemen even more bonus dmg vs siege and giving knights (!) bonus dmg vs siege.
Or just introduce aoe3 snare, so siege can not kite away into infinity…
Btw, Mangos are already kind of vulnerable to men at arms.
But it almost never makes sense to spam maa, because they can get countered so easily by knights/crossbows, are kinda slow and don’t really have very high dps against anything.
I think very honestly, siege workshops should be lowered in cost, so the civs that don’t get free siege or free siege producing building, can compete with other civs.
Like abba can build siege on the field, ayyubid too, chinese can make them from clocktower and English from castles.
Otto get free siege even.
This is why I suggested reducing the ranged armor to 7 which is the same damage as a veteran archer, so he would only do 2 damage (with the blacksmith upgrades), 22 archers would do 44 damage and destroy the mangonel in 3 shots.
Please everyone, stop trying to make every unit in the game have only 1 role. I think its unrealistic and uninteresting.
It makes sense that units are stronger against something, like specialized, but it should almost never be the case that they are completely useless against everything else, it just doesn’t make sense and also the game becomes a game of rock-paper-scissor and removes all the depth it currently has of macro, micro that should also be important. Melee units already CRUSH mangonels at equal resources. You can charge into a mangonel with cavalry and it will die, also mangonels are slow and can’t raid. How would you even fight against a mass of maa/landsnektch or mass of samourai/bugeisha if mangonal can’t even help for those fights. Cavalry will always be available to fight against mass siege. Springald are only usefull to snipe a few siege within large army, when the opponent mass too much siege, cavalry is better.
The exception should be springalds and culverines.
Only deal dmg to siege, almost no dmg to anything else.
Mangos should be good vs ranged units and ok vs buildings, that’s it.
Cannons/GB should be extremely good vs buildings, good single target vs units and do some minor area of effect damage, which currently does not apply to cannons and bombards.
Also, every civ should get access to culverines in age4.
Springalds should remain an inferior age3 unit…
I feel an alternative to mangonels having their damage reduced would be to have them deal friendly fire damage, that way there is a strategic cost to using them. It’s currently free dps to any engagement with little to no risk. If they were covering each other they would kill each other, and if they were firing into a melee skirmish they would wipe out the units protecting them, opening them up for a counter attack.
That way it would be easy to overwhelm them with their proper unit counter, horsemen.
It would also keep them focused on their main counter, since you wouldn’t be dealing friendly fire damage in the opposing ranged mass.
The thing I’m concerned with is that if you force balance through stat changes you pigeonhole them to a single role. Furthermore, reducing their ranged armor allows them to be killed by the unit they are meant to counter. I don’t think friendly fire is a significant change in topic, I think it is an effective way to address the overpowered nature of the mangonel. It also brings it in line with other age titles, where mangonel aoe has friendly fire.
Reducing their base damage also takes away a secondary use that they have, which is countering large masses of units. There are no sources of aoe damage other than defensive emplacements, siege weapons, or UU (such as chinese grenadier).
Causing the mangonel to have a friendly fire effect would also reduce their defensive capabilities. For example, if they were placed behind stone walls they would then damage the walls or units near the walls when firing into an army attacking the walls. This would solve a major issue with the defensive meta, something that cannot be addressed by stat changes alone.
Friendly fire would be an effective way to address the issue as listed, though it doesn’t accomplish it in the way you originally described. Just exploring alternative solutions to mangonel balance.
What counters large masses of units are stone walls (with fixed cost) stone wall towers and keeps, they are also countered by 99% of map types, the only competitive maps are two: Arabia and the other one created by the community Coastal Cliffs
I’ll give you a clear example: men-at-arms beat crossbowmen on equal resources if the latter do not micreate or are not protected by other units, when crossbowmen are supposed to be their counter
watch the video https://youtu.be/bmCW51RS_2Y?si=bVO8knBvCBfAld80&t=292
Edit: I gave the example that 22 archers would need 3 shots to defeat the mangonel, consider that with equal resources each mangonel costs only 8 archers and calculate the cost of horseman with a mangonel which is 3, even the 22 archers defeat 3 horseman, which are supposed to be their counter
8 archers kill 1 mangonel, as long as you split them. I didn’t even do it that well… if you reduced the range armor so it takes more than 1 damage per arrow then mangos don’t counter them at all.
Well I thought you were smart enough to understand that the conclusion is that not even 22 Archers will destroy the mangonel in three shots, if not more, because there will be other units attacking it (in addition to the mangonel itself)
The 3 riders represent almost the same resource cost which is the 600 that the mangonel costs In equal resources a mangonel faces only 8 archers what would take those archers 9 attacks to destroy it (a lot of time)
It’s a super-lategame counter to heavy unit spam.
Extremely expensive unit that counters heavy melee units like men at arms and knights effectively.
Mangonels massacre them, wiping thousands of ressources in a few shots, also archers and especially longbows win against handcannoneers, as well as horsemen.
Horsemen+archers+Mangos just massacre handcannons.
There is a damage called “True Damage” in the editor.
What I learned is that it pierces all types of armor. Maybe it can be used. So there you can implement your idea with Eoka
