I think the three non gold units should have monk resistance, but it is another discussion
If you give it as a bonus, comparable to cuman siege bonus …
“can build monasteries in feudal age but feudal age monks convert/heal/move slower and have less HP”
This is the best way to go about it. A civ bonus. Not something everyone has
Okay, if we want Feudal monks, here is how I see it. It needs to be added to a new civ, as an ability where they can build monks in the Feudal Age. These monks cost 120G, have reduced LoS, take longer to convert, and cannot collect relics. All of this reverts to normal upon reaching Castle Age. The rest of the civ can then be balanced around that.
The paragraph you quoted is only about ladder stats, not pro. Specifically, it was about “Knight civs dominating the ladder” (read one line above the thing you quoted). Basically my point is, Franks are the only outlier in whatever ranked stats we have public, other cav civs are all fine, so when we want to speak about Franks, we must say “Franks”, not “most cav civs”, at least on ladder.
If you want to speak about pro, I think KOTD pickrate is not an appropriate metric because civs can be picked only once and some civs can be banned, it’s very possible that Aztecs would be picked 100% of the time if if was free pick. But I think it’s admitted now that the best civs in tournaments are Chinese, Aztecs, Mayans since they are banned al the time, none of those are knight civs (except maybe Chinese) and none of the civs you mentioned are S-tier in any recent pro tier list.
So in summary, cav civs are not OP on ladder (except maybe Franks at low Elo) and they are not OP at pro level either, so the claim that “knight civs are dominating” is unfounded, and there is no need for monks in Feudal Age.
I don’t think this would go as you intended. Getting monastery and monks is way too much of an investment in feudal age. Most scenarios wouldn’t be affected by that since all common mid or late feudal units apart from spears are good vs monks.
I can see two scenarios happening here though. First would be the clown scenario. You basically put all your vils to food in dark age, go up pop 18 (or earlier with any civ with good eco bonus), put all your vils to gold and wood and make forward monastery. If your opponent is in dark age one monk is gonna idle half of his eco with spam click. But the idea would be to get second monasteries and go full yolo monks to not get rushed down by vils. Could actually be super broken.
Second one is for aggression. You make scouts or archers and if your opponent tries to repair walls or wall behind you convert vils to prevent that. Ofc that would be a late feudal scenario but it’ll make aggressive play much more worth it I think. Defensively I don’t think it’ll matter. Walls counter scouts and even if you have say 6 range on them and so outrange archers, getting 1 or 2 converted on it’s own won’t change too much. So I don’t think from a balance perspective this would be good idea.
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Still would buff Aztecs, Lithuanians, an any civ that would want to go early monks being able to have monks before massed before they reach castle age. This would be like being able to be make 0 attack knights even if they are worthless in feudal age. The ability to mass knights before castle age would give a substantial advantage to knight openings.
You know that there is something called “scouting”?
If you see your opponent making lots of monks you can just go light cav and have a very easy transition into knights later.
Some people here act as if the only thing they play for is fc into knight spam. It’s a strat game. You are supposed to chose your units according to the opponent’s choices to win the game. That’s strategy.
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They are so expensive that I don’t think anyone would take that as a feudal strategy.
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Yeah, monks (with reduced range) are most likely just a waste of ressources in feudal.
It would only allow to start a monk transition earlier (but for this the opponent would also already have the edge on castle age timing.
(The reduced range is a must though, otherwise the monks could too easily “safely herass” woodlines. That is definetely something to avoid (as meta strat, if it occasionally can be a counter to “too greedy” fc plays that would be fine).)
Well not outside of arena. but I’m talking about that talking about the ability to reach castle age with 1 or 2 monks already built, not feudal monk play.
Besides you are right with this, it actually won’t really change Arena gameplay, just make the hunt for the relics a bit earlier. Also in castle age the game is (outside of clowning) just monk / light cav / pikes, so nothing changes there except for the relic hunt beginning one age earlier.
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Instead of rushing to castle age, people will be extending feudal a bit to get a few monks out, but yeah. No real change. >.>
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Yeah, exactly.
I’d rather blame the players for not adding enough monks for that. From my experience players with a moderately high (1500-1800) elo still don’t add enough monks. Pros usually always add monks against knights, camels or to support knights, camels. Even archer players add monk to convert mango. Of course there are some exceptions who focus only on military and don’t care about relics either.
Can you actually balance the game around ladder and not making it unbalanced for pros? I personally don’t think so. So I won’t mind game being/staying balanced around pros.
In case if you don’t know, originally monks were planned to be Feudal age unit during the game development. You can still find Monastery and Monks in Feudal age in the alpha version. If I’m not mistaken they have been moved to Castle age in the beta as ES devs could not balance feudal monks. Obviously game changed so much in 22 years but I don’t think you can balance Feudal monk unless it is a civ bonus.
I think it’s possible by reducing the range so they have the same as archers. It’s idle to discuss about this without testing. Cause ofc there is always the potential of a unit being OP if it is turned one age down.
Idk, it’s to the devs if they want to give it a try. I think thats that kind of thing that can be tested in PUP (with communication: we want to test xyz).
I don’t deman this, but I think we now have that great tool of PUP of testing these kind of things and we don’t lose anything by using that tool imo. That’s just a general assessment of mine regarding PUP.
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