Mangudai: For me it is a good unit to kill villagers. I can’t say it’s a useful unit for killing an army of spearmen or archers or knights… and it’s not useful for defending.
The pros use it little but why? here some data of castles and imperial.
- Ages
- Feudal: Very good for killing villagers but could delay the jump to the castle age (120F 40G)
- Castle: to kill villagers one prefers knight/lancer
- Imperial: Killing villagers doesn’t matter.
- Weaknesses (castle/imperial) vs
- Horseman: 22 (11+11 bonuses) / 16 (13+13 bonuses)
- Some archers
- Tower
- Spearman: 32 (9+23 bonuses) / 39 (11+28 bonuses)
- Mangonel
- Knight/Lancer
- Cost: 120F 40G
- vs Horse Archer(rus): 80F 40W
- vs Camel Archer: 180F 60W
- Health: 85/105/120
- vs Horse Archer(rus): 85 / 100
- vs Camel Archer: 140 / 170 / 200
- vs spearman: 90 / 110 / 130
- vs horseman: 125 / 155/ 180
- Attack: 7/9/10
- vs Horse Archer(rus): 12 / 14
- vs Camel Archer: 12/14/15
- Range: 3.5
- vs Horse Archer(rus): 4.5 / 6.5 (improved)
- vs Camel Archer: 3.75
my improvements:
Cost: 100F 40G
Health: 90/110/130
Range: 3.5 / 4 / 4
- Siha Bow Limbs improved (+275S) = +0.5 range
Note: I know some will say that shooting arrows while running is all you need. But it’s also hard to move around without them dying at 3.5 range and if you want to kill a specific unit that’s low on health, you have to stop and shoot.
Do you think the mangudai need a buff?
6 Likes
No, they don’t need a buff.
They need severals… Mangudais should be the identity of the Mongols…
IMO they need a little more range, maybe a little more dmg if they are around the khan
The unit isa raid unit. Its not meant to find standing army, yet there are ways to make it viable in army fights when you have knight or something else to meatshield.
The ONLY!!! BUFF I’d recommend is a training time reduction from 30s down to 22s. Those 8 seconds will be crucial in establishing an early raiding party. Instead of having 2 to 4 them in 60s, with suggested buff you’d have 3 to 6 of them in 66s!! That’s huge.
Or make mangudai cost no gold. that would be great too
1 Like
Your exposition has been excellent, except that the spearmen counter them, that only happens if you don’t move the Mangudai.
Regarding your proposals, I would keep the cost, but I do agree on 2 things and I raise the bet.
Mangudai HP 95/115/130 instead of 85/105/120.
Mangudai range 3.5/4/4 instead only 3.5.
I’m not in favor of triple buffing or triple nerfing in general. I think that with these 2 changes, we will have to test them and see how they work in the game.
2 Likes
Whateger changes get implemented the unit needs to remain optimum for raiding and NOT be generally viable for fighting standing armies otherwise it will be a grossly OP unit.
And i think it SHOULD cost gold to force the mongols to themselves be exposed to raids while raiding. And costing gold marries well with semi fast castle play.
If you are asking for an buff for mangudai, you are using the unit wrong. Those basterds kite everything. Have you tried to run around with 80 of them, without clashing with another army, but kiting them the whole time?
Can’t stop them without walls.
If anything, they need a nerf. (Imperial)
But for all i care, they are fine.
Build a tower and Mangudais raiding is severly harmed, they still are a glass cannon unit
A slight buff won’t make them OP, they have too many counters… archers, xbows, mangonel, horsemen still will crush them (and they should continue to do so)
Right now are too expensive for what their offer
They cost just as much as fire lancers, another raid specialist, but that 8s lomger train time moght need to be looked at because stone production got reduced.
I agree an arrowslit tower greatly diminish the results of mang raids but that’s 60s build 100w plus 75 more resources, which is fair imo.
In no description of the Mangudai does it say that it is an exclusive unit for the raid and nothing else (unlike the Fire Lancer, which is indicated and still needs to be improved), if so, it would have a greater bonus against villagers and the debate would have been finish.
Only at low levels and in some big map team games (where Imperial is more easily reached) can the Mangudai show off a bit more. In mid/high level 1vs1, the Mangudai is easily countered and useless.
“Unarmored cavalry wielding explosive-tipped lances for an impressive charge attack”
That’s the description of the fire lancer? It doesn’t mention anything there about being a raid unit? However we know its a raid unit because relic told us its a raid unit. Now we can extrapolate from the fire lancer strengths nd weaknesses WHY its a raid unit (good at siege and killing villagers, not so much at fighting standing army).
Notice the mangudai have the same qualities and weaknesses? I dont think it’s far fetch to assume that they are dedicated raid units, especially given they are designed to hit and run LITERALLY!!
If I’m not mistaken, in the tech tree and on the wiki, it’s said that it’s good in raiding buildings (I’m not saying it’s super exclusive either, but the Mangudai even less so), but I still think they nerfed them so much and I clearly see that the Mangudai in Early/Mid needs more love.
I rely on the data and the competitive meta.
One alternativa is a bonus against villagers, so it is clear that it is for that.
You don’t really need to upgrade the tower, 100w and you will defend your resources just fine against mangudai. You just need to garrison your vills.
They need a buff, and anything but speed would be fine
I do think they could use a slight buff. At least a buff to the elite version.
I’m for a little price reduction and some kind of little extra buff if grouped with khan
Not much is needed to make mangudai great.
They can do 1 out of 3 things.
- Increase their Range. (to 4.5)
- Give them Bonus damage against Siege.
- Give them Bonus damage against Buildings.
Option 1: Increase range, allows them to be played much more effectivly. It gives them more space for manuvering which they need, and one dosn’t need to change their damage output as the Range bonus offsets the rather weak damage, as it will have unparalleled kiting ability, and the ability to bait opponents into engagement. THIS WILL HOWEVER INCREASE QQ LEVEL BY NON-MONGOL PLAYERS TO A HIGH DEGREE. ESPECIALLY HIGH ON FEUDAL FRENCH PLAYERS
Option 2: Bonus damage against Siege, This is a tried and tested feature, that is already for the Mongols in AoE2. It grants the Mongols a unique feature to deal with Siege very efficiently. While Mangonels would still blasts the Mangudais into the moon, one could effectivly raid Mangonels with a small group of Mangudai and catch them off guard. This Option would be the most balanced one and community wide accepted due to it having been a very long time feature of AoE2 and ironed out most of its unbalance. THIS WILL INCREASE QQ LEVEL BY NON-MONGOL PLAYERS TO A LOW DEGREE
Opetion 3: Bonus damage against Buildings, This allows Mongols to play on their Raid-Bounty feature. It will also make Raid-Bounty ovoo upgrades more relevant and viable, as Mangudais will become very cost-effective way to raid light-buildings such as Farms, Houses, Mills and Camps. And perhaps even non-fortified outposts.
This severly helps offset their high unit cost, and will give them a nice Feudal-role alternative. Allowing Mongols to focus less on econ and more on aggression.
it also will also grant a much greater purpose to the Age III landmark; Kurultai. As it will have incredible synergy.
As one would have increased gold income from Raiding to help offset the 50% increased gold income from the Steppe Redoubt. However high attention to how this effects the game will be required and most likely we will see several Tuning back and forth over time to find just the right spot, or else risk having a dangerous Snowball effect with the mongols. THIS WILL INCREASE QQ LEVEL BY NON-MONGOL PLAYERS TO A UNKNOWN DEGREE.
ESPECIALLY HIGH DEGREE TO EARLY RUS AND MID/LATE-GAME ENGLISH.
Personally, I am a fan of number 3 Option.
but I’d be just as happy with Number 2 option.
1 Like
Thinking about it, why not have a bonus against villagers so that they eliminate them with 4 arrows instead of 8? I said a proposal above but I thought about that raid bonus and it makes sense.
while giving bonus damage against villagers is nice. It will however be far less usefull in the late game.
Late game you usually have the mass to deal with villagers efficiently with Mangudai, and all they will be doing is damage-overcompensation (Multiple units shooting at a single unit that already died from the first 2-3 shots)
So it dosn’t scale well with increased mangudai mass, just lowers the power-drop off from loosing mangudais vs Villagers.
I’d rather have the Mangudai do bonus dmg vs spears same as Camel Archers, as this allows you to combine them with horsemen far more effectivly. and that in itself will allow for more efficient raiding, not just of villagers, but also buildings.
The only effective counter to Mangudai is archer. Thats why an archer has higher range. The other counter is horsemen but doesn’t work very well with mass Mangudai and they can run away with Khan speed arrow. So you now want to nullify the only effective counter to this unit? Surely its not that good in 1v1 but the unit is beast in team-games.
1 Like
Archer has 5 range. Horsemen must micromanage well vs mangudai and towers, keeps and walls could do great job.