Mangudai simply costs too much and offers little.
Basically the most useless unit in this game.
Got only 1 unique upgrade which doesn’t do much. (+1, unique +2 damage) in total the full upgrade only deals 18 damage).
No bonus damage to any unit…
15% movement speed can only be received through outposts that would last 30 seconds and 100 wood for each outpost… (a big disadvantage).
Got 1.25 attack speed (no unique upgrade)
Got 3.50 range (dies trying to get closer - even grenadiers have 4 range)…
Changes needed
It cannot raid in high elo games at all. It just dies trying to get closer and the enemy absolutely owns mangudai. (I usually make them stand behind heavy or meat units so they could do better).
This unit is an absolute paper and does trade ineffectively against most units.
Needs increased range, but reduced attack speed while moving and when standing still it needs to get improved attack speed.
-Needs some unique upgrades that would increase its pierce armour a little bit.
This way it could get better and would justify the cost.
Camel archers
Advantages
Camel archers cost lots of food (disadvantage) and little wood and they are tankier, deal lots of damage to infantry, and cause nearby Cavs to lose 20% damage.
Got lots of unique upgrades (some bugged) and are very effective if fixed.
Got a 15% attack speed and movement speed upgrade that affect it permanently.
Got 1.25 base attack speed - can be improved to 1.12 attack speed.
-Got a 3.75 range (a big disadvantage) - needs a unique upgrade or increase base range by 0.75.
Even grenadiers (got 4 range) throw grenades farther than Mangudai and Camel Archers…
with full upgrade deals 20 damage.
Changes needed
I think aoe of Camel 20% cavalry damage reduction needs to be nerfed. For example, only camel units would receive 20% reduced damage from cavalry instead of reducing cavalry damage by 20% in a given radius.
Current AOE 20% cavalry damage reduction is too OP for mass army engagements with little investment. A player can train a single camel unit and can reduce up to 100 (just for fun) cavalry damage by 20% is just ridiculous!
Make Camel archers cost gold. For example 100 Food, 20 wood, 40 gold. (The main reason is that it can be spammed easily due to no gold requirement). and decrease its HP slightly.
Final thoughts
Mangudai
With some fixes and nerfs to Mongols, Mangudai needs to become the backbone. Currently, they are totally useless in higher elo games.
Camel Archers
With some buffs and fixes to Abbasids and the Camel archer attack speed, etc, they should be a very effective unit against infantry and mounted units.
I do, Protoss Oracle is a fragile, super high DPS economy killer, while Stalker is just like front line units.
Mangudai are extremely decent in killing a large number of Vills in a very short period of time, on par with the German Landsknecht. Sneaking a dozen of Mangudai into an unguarded woodline or farm mill, they are all dead in matter of seconds. Also Mangudai need to be countered by normal foot archers. You can’t use them like frontline, and you can’t use them only without support.
Buffing Mangudai will turn us back into the Rus brainless HA spam terror again.
I have been using mongols exclusively in team matches lately and Mangudai are extremely overpowered in my opinion but only for sniping the enemies eco - that’s how you use them - they aren’t a unit you should trade / keep behind your battalion - you make 10-30 and snipe their villages (Feudal/Castle) and you can also mow down their spear men, even knights, because they shoot while moving.
EDIT:
I don’t know if they are useless in higher elo games, but in anything less than Conqueror I think they’re insanely good - My past few matches I wiped their eco and they just surrendered like dominoes.
EDIT 2:
You have to micro/macro ( whatever its called ) - you cant just leave them alone unguarded, they are weak - but you can even just put them on the enemys trade line and have them run from one end to the other and while you focus on base building they will mow down the trade lines of your enemies. I like to run them through the enemy wood lines and farms if it’s late Feudal, if it’s early I go for the gold/stone first, but basically I hunt them down where they are weak - eventually they need to spread out, and the villagers are very vulnerable to this type of attack - and while the enemies eco is idle, your teammates are booming away as well. ( hopefully )
It is easy, if the developers want this unit to be difficult to kill armored units (horseman, knight…) and “easy” to kill unarmored units such as archer or spearman (their counter units). Then decrease the cost of the mangudais.