So, in fights of mangudai vs other units, the mangudai really do not have the power to hold off enemies compared to walls. If I go out to the field of battle with mangudai, I will lose around 20% of them under even the best scenarios, because I have to trade vs the enemy.
For the player who wants to play pure mongol mangudai, they have to win relentlessly, win after win, running around enemy WALLS and not being able to rest. They skimp on defense, and in the end they lose to attrition. Mangudai should be winning battles of attrition, not losing them. At the same time, they need to be buffed in ways that does not break them.
I have a suggestion for a buff that is designed to increase the power of mangudai in small, groups, but not dramatically increase the power of large groups. Bleeding. Whenever a mangudai hits a target with an arrow, it applies bleeding. Bleeding is a debuff that stacks up to 5 times, and causes additional damage over 3 seconds.
For a small group of 5 mangudai, bleeding would allow for more damage to be caused over time. However for larger groups of mangudai, their damage would be identical. However, this is not enough. The mangudai need more range, and they need slightly faster move speed and health regeneration over time. Perhaps mangudai should also cost stone. But they need to be a unit that can be depended upon to stop raiding parties.
The mongols do not have walls. The ONLY response that the mongols can mount is a quick military response to an attack, and the unit that is used primarily for that defense is the mangudai. The mangudai need to be able to prevent the mongol base from being raided to the ground by mobs of spearmen and archers.
I think you are misjudging the role of the mangudai, they are meant to raid villagers or kite melee units across open ground. They are not a unit that is supposed to be the core of an army or defend against attacks.
You’re not optimally using the unit. The mangudai already has superior speed to all standard melee units and are exceptional at CONSTANTLY harrassing villager gathering; especially with pair with your khan to increase speed and GREAT LOS. If you also include a few horsemen for seige/meat shielding, you COULD really really force a player to turtle and deny natural resources.
Also try pairing the inability to wall with having outposts; Your mongol outpost gives you SUCH A WIDDDDEE LOS that you SHOULD see most all the raids coming; and I believe your outpost works with one of your speed landmarks?
Mongols are currently THE STRONGEST civ in the game. Let that sink in. THE STRONGEST IN THE GAME. They have a 95% win rate in the last tournament between the PROS.
Generally mangudai should never be fighting “battles”, you should have a different unit composition for your battles while sending mangudai to raid villagers in which they are extraordinarilly good at
Its quite obvious that the Mangudai is a unit which could be extremly broken if buffed too much. Also I dont think adding a new effect will be something realistic in the near future. But I have to agree that in the current state Mangudai are just not good. Yeah you can try to raid with them but for the price of them (which is really high) its not a good raiding unit. A few archers, a tower or walls shut them down completly and since they need micro to kite its an even worse raiding unit.
The RUS horse archer is better in every way at the moment since they are cheaper, do more damage, have more range and get better upgrades. The shooting while moving of the Mangudai is just not as good since they have such a low range.
I made an in-depth analysis of the Mangudai here in case you are interested:
Exactly, the Mangudais are historically units that were deployed to take out any ranged and melee units with a great range due to composite recurve bows. This bow gives better range and velocity than longbows. Longbow never performs better than the composite recurve bows due to their poor design and simple build material.
The Mangudais were so superior that their enemies had no way to counter them effectively on the open battlefield. These horse archers would slaughter knights without much resistance with the help of light melee cavalry.
In the game, however, they really need an upgrade that gives them bonus range. At least +1.
And extra piercing +1 armour in Feudal would be a good balancing point.