What about the 1000s of other Persian games where War Elephants werent ever a viable option??
How many games in a 1000 does a Persian player go Elephants??
The question is Simple:
And are you happy with that negligible percentage? Is that a good thing?
in 1v1s? Elephants are rarely used in 1vs1 because of the high cost. it isnât how good the unit is holding it back. its the cost.
you want to rebalance the game to where elephants can be used in 1v1? be prepared for elephant civs to take huge hits.
iâm fine with it because i understand that despite not using battle elephants/war elephants/ballista elephants/elephant archers much in 1v1, those civs are still good solid civs and are balanced.
I donât care to balance the game around Elephant (or Unique Unit) use in 1v1 because frankly, it would require a complete redesign of the game.
The question was not about Civ balance, but about Unit Balance
And are you happy with that negligible percentage of WE usage? Is it really a good thing?
you canât talk about one, without impacting the other.
yes. because i understand there is more to this game then the word âElephantâ.
yeah well its a team game unit.
many units arenât used but very rarely.
because the game is relatively balanced. you start adjusting units and guess what happens? that finely balanced game we have? becomes imbalanced.
really? we literally have 3 civs who are great in 1v1 play, with Elephant unique units. now imagine how strong they would be if their Unique Units, which rarely see 1v1 play, were boosted enough to see 1v1 play often?
these units are cost effective enough that they see use in team games, the only problem holding them back is their COST. all elephant units are hugely supply efficient, and to buff them to the point that what holds them back is no longer an issue in 1v1 games, wouldnât be a huge issue?
let me put it in perspective.
lets take the paladin. a great unit no?
now imagine if we said âyou know what? its too expensive to use in 1 vs 1 games, lets reduce its cost by 50% so its not limited by its cost anymoreâ.
Hereâs where your perspective is wrong
Itâs not the same as asking for a Paladin price reduction, as Paladins are already a meta unit
War Elephants are never seen unit and totally were never in meta, so even if we reduce their cost by just 20% itâs not going to make them or their civ OP, thatâs for sure.
i was using it as a point of example.
considering how supply efficient they already are in team games? yes, it would have a HUGE IMPACT.
and the fact that you somehow think the unit wouldnât be overbearing and lead to huge gains for Elephant civs is hilarious.
We disagree here, only after a buff to these units happen can we see what happens.
All I say is, buffs like this have happened before. Look at what happened to the UU and the civ.
We already saw multiple buffs to Turtle Ships, Elephant Archers and Tarkans, and look how frequently they are used now. Hint: Just as much as before the buffs.
But you still will not be convinced that a 20% price reduction for WE, Turtles, Condos, TKs etc is still balanced.
really? so i got a great idea. lets take a unit that is already super supply efficient.
the knight line. great example, they are very supply efficient, frequently winning supply vs supply against even their counters. now. lets reduce it by 20% cost. do you think that would cause an issue?
how about the Mangudai. same thing. very expensive unit, very good unit, very supply efficient unit.
shouldnât be a problem to reduce its cost by 20% right?
Turtle Ships, Elephant Archers and Tarkans, are supply effiecient.
We already saw multiple buffs to Turtle Ships, Elephant Archers and Tarkans, and look how frequently they are used now. Hint: Just as much as before the buffs.
But you still will not be convinced that a 20% price reduction for UNUSED UNITS WE, Turtles, Condos, TKs etc is still balanced.
UUs should be balanced for that particular civ first and foremost. So that ech UU becomes a VIABLE option for that civ, and is seen.
Generic Units available to a civ should never take all the viability space of a civâs UU.
how often do we see Koreans period? as for Tarkans (I donât know if i would call these supply efficient 5 hits to kill a halb, in that time they take 152 damage, just from 1 halb) outshone by Paladins.
as for EA? seen plenty of them lately in team games. which is fine. where a unit like that is good at. and look at how favorably it trades, even against units that should be good against it. now imagine that unit being 20% cheaper.
you want to make it a 1v1 unit to build Indians around?
its going to cost you. we have hordes of evidence ot back this up not just in AoE2, but RTS games in general.
this we disagree with. and apparently the devs agree, because theyâve literally never designed the game in such a way.
If this is what you want, i am sure there is a game designed in such a way, but Age 2 has literally NEVER met that criteria.
we literally have civs to this day that were in Age of Kings who donât use their UU that much, if at all. as a matter of a fact, only 7 unique units from AoK civs see what i would even consider uncommon use or above (Longbow, CKN, Huskarl, Mangudai, Mameluke, Jans, and Longboats).
I agree with you here. Before the change, they have konnik as very cost efficient melee unit and Paladin as archer resistant raiding unit. But now they have two melee cavalry and no archer resistent raiding units. If they want to take out paladin upgrade, at least give them more P-armor instead of faster attack.
I think Italian are very powerful naval power during medieval age (Just think of Venice and Genoa). I would rather have a unique naval unit than the condottieri. Monk discount is welcome but I donât think further buff to monasteries or universities are needed.
Totally agree with you on that. May be reduce the attack as well, they have ridiculously high attack that ignores armor and can be bolstered further by picking up relics. They should be positioned as a medium cavalry to counter high armored units, not an alternative to paladins.
Atheism always has a problem in 1vs1 games. The biggest problem is you can afford it in long drawn out games and when you can see all your enemy moves, its no more fun.
Marauders is completely useless. I donât see why someone picks this up specifically to produce tarkans from stable, given that the tarkan itself is a one trick pony and not that powerful anyway. Either reduce the cost or give another buff (10% faster movement perhaps, to raid towns faster and chase down cav archers?). Donât take away Paladin, they need a heavy cavalry.
cavalier has 140 hp and 6 pierce armor. it takes 35 shots from fully upgraded arbs to kill it. i consider that quite a lot of archer resistance, especially when you consider their faster attack speed allows them to kill a lot quicker.
konniks have a combined 190 HP and take 45 shots total to kill.
they have plenty of raiding potential.
If I remember correctly, you are the one who tell also about Leitis:
Leitis can take 38 FU Arb shot. So when Cavalier can take 35 shots from Arb it is lot of resistance, and when Leitis can take 3 more, is weak to Archers? 
35 is not much for Heavy Cav.
For raiding it is good resistance. Especially considering the cavalier is from the stable. People use hussar for raiding all the time and it has the same pierce armor, lower attack and attack rate
People use Hussar for raiding not because of PA or dmg but because is trash unit and can be sacrificed.
If we comapre raiding potential of Leitis and Knight-line, Leitis is worse only in one thing- is created from castle. Is better in every way from Cavalier for raiding: has more arrow resistance, is cheaper, faster and deal more dmg. Need only 2 relics to kill Vill in 2 hits. Even trade better against Camels. Comparison to Paladin also looks good - Pala will need 3 relics to kill Vill with 2 hits, and is slower. Better is only during raids undder the arrow fire.
yes but where raiding is concerned, iâm not expecting my enemy to have 30-35 archers sitting at home. the whole point of raiding is to hit an unprotected eco.
yeah, hussars are cheap and expendable, but iâm also not going to throw them away for nothing.
iâm going to pull my enemies army somewhere else and throw 15 or so raiding units into his base where he doesnât have as much to defend. that 35 hits to kill while raiding might well be 3 volleys of arb fire based on what the enemy can marshal out, which when coupled with the insane bulgarian stirrup cavalier attack rate, means a lot of damage into their eco.
Someone can go tower-defence and place towers in Eco for Vills to hide.
at which point they are sitting in those towers, not gathering resources, which hurts your opponent.
those towers also likely donât have murder holes, as it rarely sees use in pro games.