Mangudais should be a core part of mongol army, just like longbows for english

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

I really can’t stand with how mongols are supposed to be played atm.

Don’t get me wrong, i think the game is in good shape and i’m super hyped for the incoming expansion, most of the civs are really cool, but the mongols, i really don’t like them, and that’s bad because they fascinate me so much (historically speaking)

When i first picked them i imagined to have a civ focused on fast light cavalry hitting and running everywhere.

Instead you train foot spearmen, build a tower in enemy’s face to slow him down, then you make merchants, and then train keshiks with foot archers…basically mongols are french with weaker knights but who heal themselves.

Mangudais, who should be the essence of the mongol civ, are absolutely unplayable, they:

  • cost more than rus horse archers while dealing half damage and costing gold too, which makes no sense
  • are slower than a full plated knight, which makes no sense
  • have garbage damage and don’t even kill spearmen because they don’t have the bonus damage that foot archers have vs light, which makes no sense aswell (if you play the campaign, the mongol cinematics show how powerful their bow is, then you play it and just tickles everything)
  • as a compensation for the low damage, they shoot at the rate of a semi-auto rifle, which makes no sense

I understand it’s a difficult unit to balance cause they shoot while moving, but i don’t think that making them unplayable is a good solution;
you can have them fire at a lower rate while moving (and lower rate in general, but with more damage)
You can make them take bonus ranged damage like janissaries because they’re too hard to engage in melee

anyway i think they should be designed to be a core part of the army.

It would make mongols a really unique civ in terms of army composition, compared to the other civs.

At least, at the current state, make them cost no gold.

And please get rid of tower rush, it’s so ugly. My suggestion is to remove barracks from dark age and stick them up to feudal.
Mongol civ in general should count far less on infantry in my opinion.

Sorry for the long post, just wanted to share my thoughts

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Mangudai require high APM. That is to mske good use of them you need to be able to raid on a few fronts and kite enemy units.

Currently they can kill all light cav chasing them in small numbers (7 or so light cav in pursue). If you mix them with keshik they can now sustain in small engagements where there arent enough archers to snipe your Mangudai (17 archers to 1 shot or 9 archers to double tap).

Mangudai keshik works vs all non defensive civs on open maps: Delhi, Ottoman, Abbasid, China*, HRE.

I can agree that they could be given a stance that restricts their movement but ups output damage.

One last tip: when being chased by horsemen; attack speed is better than movement speeds

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Noone is stopping you from training Mangudais.
They are situational and can be very strong.
Especially in imperial age they are very strong/pop at max upgrades.

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I really like the idea of a stance that make them slower but deal more damage or attack faster (if their base damage get increased and they shoot slower in run mode).

Or maybe the stance would just make them need to stop to shoot. But same move speed. So they would bbe similar to horse archer in that stance.

They would probably need a cooldown or delay when switching so you can’t just activate it while shooting and then remove it constantly.

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5

I just started to use(and learn) with mongols. I thought they were much more complicated to use, but actually i find them not so complicated and super strong. I mix mangudai with keshik, usually with crossbowman at back and some spearmen around.

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6

Same here. It doesn’t feel right that they only kick in at Imperial Age, especially for a civ that’s supposed to be all about raiding and cavalry. Right now it seems that the Mongols excel in infantry and siege, which is just… weird.

I think the Mangudai should be better all-round DPS earlier on or at least, strong counters to something. Sadly the Japanese already have a crossbow cavalry or I’d suggest they be made to take out armored units (which historically the Mangudai were great at, kiting armored troops to their deaths).

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True, with Onna Bugeisha released as an Anti-armor horse archer, I wonder if it could be considered to make Horse Archers the replacement for Crossbowman for several civs, although then they would lose the feature of using crossbows.

There could also be considered 2 types of horse archers:

  • 1.- Heavy (High Hp) anti-armor or high attack cavalry (Onna Mussha, Horse Archer, Camel Archer)
  • 2.- Light and cheap for raiding (Mangudai, Dessert Raider).

The Mongols would be missing a heavy horse archer. In fact, at a historical level, the Mangudai were not the only Mongol tribe of horse archers, there were the subjugated Kipchaks and the Turkic peoples (Tatars). Now that there are several unique units per civ, they could still give the Mongols another Horse Archer, but stronger, for Imperial or Castles, one with more armor or HP and some skill; similar to what happens with the English and their Wynguard Ranger (Based on the Yeomen of the Guard with bow) or the French Royal cannons.

“Tatar Horse Archer” would be a good name for a heavy version, they could well give it the Aoe2 (anti-siege) effect. Also, Ottomans would have the Akinci as light horse archer cavalry.

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8

I completely aggree with you here, brotha. The problem is however that mangudais can be VERY strong if small mistakes while buffing them happens. The fact they can attack while moving is devastating in a RTS game

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And especially, when arrows never miss. This is how AOE1 and 2 balanced the units. No matter the damage, if the player is skilled, it can make enemy ranged units an absolute trash. This created a huge skill gap and also improved gameplay a lot. Many AOE2 players enjoy how arrow mechanic works. But, here in AOE4, devs are trying to balance ranged units by only changing stats and it will never fix it. The problem is the “HOMING PROJECTILES!!!”.

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I prefer auto aim arrows. I want to have fun in here, not break my mind micro-managing everything.
Heck, i want auto-queu to be a thing. Sadly dont think devs will ever implement it, but at least AoM: Retold will bring it back :sunglasses:

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11

Agree…
Even for ranked, this would be quite an amazing QOL feature.
Especially for higher leagues this wouldn’t bring any harm, as high elo players anyways can handle things with higher apm usually.
Games in very high elo are usually decided through mistakes and strategy, not by forgetting to train villagers or army for 5 minutes.
It won’t make much of a difference for the balance/skill, but in lower leagues people would be loving it especially much.
I can’t see any harm done by auto-queues.
The good change, especially for lower leagues, is, that it will allow the players to focus more on the strategy, managing fights and raids, the build-up of the eco and be more conscious of what’s going on in the game, as players will be less stressed with multitasking.
Imo, it will just make the game more interesting, as people will polish their strategies more and will be focussing more on outsmarting each other and managing their armies and take the map.

To the OP:
This is a (somewhat) competitive rts game with elements of fantasy and non-realism.
The mangudais are super hard to balance and buffing them just a little always brings the risk of inducing an insane chaos into the game-balance.
This game will and can never be historically accurate and super realistic.
Maybe stick to history books or documentaries about the Mongolian history, if you are especially interested in that area.

1 Like
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Yeahhh but i mean, i can understand if they dont want to implement it. I can somewhat see why people dont want the features added. And since aom retold will bring it back, it will kind of balance the preferences of every type of players. AOE3 with autogathering villagers and cards, AOM with auto-queu, AOE1/2 as the classic old school and AOE4 as the middle of the ground style…

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the way i see it’s not impossible to balance a unit that shoots while moving, starcraft 2 has two ones, it’s just a matter of trade-offs.
Mangudais definitely need a buff, but in order to make them not overpowered you have to concede something. My suggestions are:

Buff side:

  • Increase straight damage by 2
  • bring back previous movement speed
  • cost 100f 40w
  • give them the same bonus attacks the archers have
  • move shia bow tech back to castle

Nerf side:

  • reduce attack speed
  • Reduce even more attack speed while they’re moving OR make shoot while moving a stance that can be activated and deactivated (like the limitanei testudo) that make them attack at a reduced rate of fire
  • take 50% increased damage from ranged like janissaries
  • increase training time by 50% so they are harder to mass

Remove barracks from dark age so we get rid of that ugly tower rush.

in addition, i’d like a change in the “siege engineers” tech: the improved one no longer lets units build mangos and springalds on the field, instead lets cavalry units build rams too.

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Yep, Mongols is a tower rush and infantry civ because of that barracks and all cavs suck real hard.