Mangudais are useless against any ranged units because

100000% hit rate of tracking arrows!
Fix this come on!
2021 game cannot implement it???

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It’s more like their short range/gold cost vs archers. Nothing to do with the lack of arrow dodging.

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In AoE2 they could be fun with that fabulous micro dodging stuff, but I can’t imagine the Devs ever changing such a fundamental part of a new game. Just make them cheaper and see how that goes since they ought to be a main-unit of the Mongols…

Mangudais are in a good spot already. The problem with them is that they are not suposed to be used as an standalone battalion.
Devs said more than once that they want AoE IV to be a game of counters and mixed armies, so yeah, your mangudai shouldn’t be fighting archers by themselves. Mix them up with horsemen or lancers and you will have a versatile and mobile force for feudal age, or mix them with knights in castle, where mangudai can get really strong (due to the improved unique tech for their range and damage).
Units that are strong by themselves are easily considered a problem, just like the old springald, current bombard and horse archers.
And the choice of projectiles hitting 100% of the time actually makes things easier on the balance topic. Mobility should be an asset for a unit, yeah, but should not act as a bulletproof vest, which would make immobile units half-useless.
I repeat: do not try to fight archers with only mangudai. This matchup is designed so every civ have an answer to mangudai. They are NOT supposed to be a power unit, same as every unique unit. Battles, and army composition, should be planned as a composition of more than one tipe of unit. Unique units are like the “curveballs” that civs can throw around, forcing their opponents to transition and/or adapt. No unique unit, no unique tech are supposed to transform a unit into a power unit, so that’s why projectiles always hit, so mobile units are not a natural counter versus arrows.

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Would be fun to be able to doge mangudais at far range, forcing them to be closer, to attack.

u must be confused the Mangudais with the Rus horse archers.
Mangudais don’t have don’t any unique range upgrade…

the cost of the unit, the micro the unit demands due to having the shortest range of all ranged units is just overwhelming. Even grenadiers have a longer range than the Mangudais…

And you won’t see Mangudais in tournaments because they are basically useless and worthless being the most praised unit in history until muskets.

about your argument of projectiles, you are totally wrong. In AOE2, players who microed well would always win due to the reward of being a focused and multi-tasking player who is able to fight and boom at the same time.
Realistically, static archers would always lose against mobile horse archers as Mangudai is a much harder target due to arrow velocity and distance. On the other hand, horse archers would be an advantage over foot archers because they can take better positions and shoot static targets with ease.

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Siha Bow Limbs only increase ranged damage. You are correct on that point.

BUT

1- Mangudais are being used a lot in the current Pro League 3v3 tournament, specially paired with cavalry civs, like the French.
2- AoE IV have it’s own things to multitask with. Besides, the point on mangudais needing to be microed to be effective… well… you can get a lot with them, by doing it, more than other units. What I mean is that mangudai have a higher babysitting floor and ceiling, which translates to higher rewards if you want to use your APM on that. Being rewarded with semi-invulnerability would be an even higher reward for babysit mangudai, which would most certainly overtune them. Up to this day, in the AoE2 community, there are people who just want arrows to hit, either all the times or after Ballistics tech. It’s not about being realistic, but they feel scammed by some player spamming formations to dodgeball not only your arrows, but all your skills, resources and time invested scouting your opponent, adjusting your economy and building an army to fight the opponents comp, only due to a purely game mechanic allow the enemy units to shake it all away. Besides, SC2 is a banger of an RTS and all ranged attacks hit and I never heard any complains about it.

It’s just another game design choice, and one I praise a lot, actually: A player’s attention and APM are also resources, which the player chooses how to allocate. Nothing is better in a RTS game than choosing how, why and when to do stuff. Pro players try to get their opponents attention in one point of the map in order to do something else in other part of it. Not being able to do everything at once is not a problem, it’s not bad game desing. Allowing high APM players to be rewarded on dodging arrows will only create an ever increasing pit betweet said skill and players with other skills. There are a lot of creative players out there, and it would be a shame to not enjoy inspiring game styles just because a high APM can counter everything.

I emphasize: Rewarding high APM is not a good game design. It just creates elitism. Why this one skill should overshadow others?

If you still want to play mangudai, and are not finding good results, then develop other skills to properly use them: scouting for vulnerable areas, plan proper army compositions to force the combat to be mobile and not static, understand the match and your [team] needs so you can properly transition into and out of mangudai. I could give more examples, but I think my point is clear, right now.

SC2 is set in a futuristic setting. of course, the bullets are fast enough to hit and would have tracking technology etc.

but here in AOE 4, we are talking about 8th to 16th-century technology…

I don’t have any issue with unit composition, it is just this unit being unique and totally useless against any ranged unit even if it is mixed with horsemen or other infantry units.

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Logically …wouldn’t Mangudai’s miss all arrows while moving and be useless if this was implemented fairly on all units across the board?

Logically, the Mongol horse archers used the best bows during their time. It offered faster projectile velocity, range, and penetration power and they were masters of horse archery. And historically, it is the best unit of the medieval era that created a huge gap between other units as it was too hard to counter.

European archers were out-ranged by this unit, knights were smashed, infantries couldn’t do anything on the battlefield. It made every type of unit useless.

And chinese had gunpowder in weapons as early as the tang dynasty. Yet AoE IV don’t implement them “realistically” because this is a game, and not a Historical Military Simulator. This has the aim to be fun and engaging to a broad audience, and not to be a pedestal for people with a uber-specific set of skills.

Tang used gunpowder for mining purposes, then the Song used it for military purposes to counter the Mongols.

Tang used gunpowder to scare opponents, but let’s take your point as correct, as a mental exercise.
Why aren’t you trying to get gunpowder weapons, for the Chinese, in Song dynasty?
Why didn’t you consider, when talking about SC2, that the absolute majority of bullets fired in any modern war miss their target?
What should we do to the other elements of the game, after the military details are gotten to perfection?
How do we justify civs that never met in a battlefield being in the same game screen?
What do we do about the infantry phalanx warfare context that dominated the european battlefield in the late middle ages? How do we implement it?

Of course, most of these questions are just rethorical in order to demonstrate the absurdity of trying to implement every detail in the game, as if it’s a simulation. And, knowing we can’t implement everything, how do we choose what we want to implement? Why arrows don’t miss? What is the game development principles and virtues driving the team in Relic as they develop AoE IV?

See, what I’m trying to say is this: This is a game. This is an RTS, not a Mil Sim. This is supposed to be fun, not top notch historically accurate. Playing the “realism” card, in a game, is like bread and butter: too much butter and it becomes unpallatable.

They stated the game is educative so yeah, your argument is burned and turned into ash.

Animation: \Mic Drop\

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Meanwhile those supposed to be inferior, cheaper, no gold cost Rus Horse Archer WTFBBQPWN every units in the game.

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