i think the only ideas i can get behind are fortified walls and replacing third civ bonus with something. your suggestion to give persians brace shows your complete ignorance of any semblence of balance or civ identity. you might as well say give aztecs paladin.
I am assuming that the developers created their third civ bonus in regards to the balance of indians. Regarding the other points
The unique tech Shatagni makes their Hand Cannoneers less accurate. So the question is: Why should someone pay resources to make their units worse?
The Elephant Archer is not a useless unit but it is rarely seen in-game. Unique units should in some way complement a civilization. The Elephant Archer is rarely seen since all its roles are fullfilled by other units.
I think that Persian archers should be harder to mass even without bracer. If Kamandaran would get nerfed their should be a buff otherwise to their archers. Persians archers would still not be an option in team games since they are still worse than other archers and players trade in team games so running out of gold takes longer. This would be a buff especially for 1v1 games but at the same time players would less often be able to reach that time in which they are able to mass them.
I think my idea regarding Kamandaran would impact more 1vs1 than it would impact team games. Since in team games Persians usually go for Paladins or other gold intensive units saving up 700 food and 500 gold to research Kamandaran would not be an option if your team mates already have better archers. I agree that they would be the best trash civ in the game by a lot but only if they are able to get to that stage.
I’m generally in favor of civs getting Bracer (give it to Cumans and Celts please), but trash bow is one unit I don’t think should have it. Those archers can be spammed with late game wood income, and they are very strong already. Fortified Wall for Persians could be alright.
As for Indians, the removal of Plate Barding ruined the civ for me. Camels already die so quickly to defensive buildings and archers, removing Pierce armor from them was a mistake. Even reducing melee armor was questionable, since Indian camels need to fill the knight role, fighting all types of units. Even Plate Armor alone is not enough, they need full armor upgrade + bonus pierce armor.
I also agree that increasing range on Hand Cannons shouldn’t affect accuracy. Maybe just tie it to an accuracy improvement, so they stay at 75% accuracy at 8 range, and higher at 7 range.
Elephant Archer is a pretty good unit, just too expensive and slow to mass. I don’t think it needs a Konnik mechanic.
Edit: I’ll also add that the Indian Camel without fully upgraded armor is not any better than Saracen or Malian Heavy Camels now, fights can go either way depending who lands the first hit, but the Imperial upgrade is far more expensive (1200F + 600G, compared to Farimba at 650F + 400G or Zealotry at 500F + 450G). They are also no stronger than Byzantine Camels with equal resources (and those have no unique upgrade cost). I honestly don’t get how to play Indians after the Plate Barding removal, their only fully upgraded late game units are now Hand Cannons, Skirmishers, Cav Archers, Elephant Archers and Bombard Cannons. Nothing about the Imperial Camel justifies missing the Knight line, or Arbalester, or poor infantry. They don’t even get Battle Elephants… Anyway, that’s enough of a rant, I just would like to see Indians have more than just a strong early game economy and booming potential (the only reason their win rate is a solid 52%, and that drops to 48% in games over 40 minutes because they have no good post-imperial comp).
In my opinion, no. Imperial Camels were fine with one more pierce/melee armor. They were only strong because so many players spam cavalry without considering counters. Even vs cavalry, Imperial Camel is not much stronger than Heavy Camel, both have the same 18 bonus damage to Cavalry (it’s not like Pike to Halberd upgrade where bonus damage goes from 22 to 32), so it’s really just a matter of gaining 20 HP to survive longer against strong enemies like Paladins. However even this was reduced because they lost 1 melee armor when Plate Barding was removed, which means Imperial Camels now die to Cavalier in 12 hits (was 13 with Plate Barding), compare that to generic heavy camels (11 hits) or Saracens (13 hits). It’s worse against Paladins, with Imperial or generic heavy camels both dying in 10 hits (Saracens take 12).
The main thing Indian Camels need is versatility, because Knights are not an option. This means they need to be able to raid (+2 attack and +4 bonus vs buildings) and survive against various defensive units (this is where the 5 pierce armor with Plate Barding was useful, now they have 4).
It may sound like a small difference, but it means Imperial Camels now die easily to even Elite Skirmishers (3 damage taken, instead of the previous 2). If anything they should have gotten the +2 Pierce Armor in Imperial Age and kept Plate Barding for a total of 6 Pierce Armor (taking 1 damage from Skirmishers, 4 from Arbalesters, and 9 from Castles). It should really require Spears or gold units to take down an army of Camels during trash wars.
I do think that the fishing nerf from 15% to 10% was justified, and I’m not saying Indians should become overpowered, but their camels are quite disappointing these days. I’d prefer Saracen, Malian, Byzantine, or Berber Camels in any game. Taking from their eco and giving to their cavalry seems like a good tradeoff.
It should certainly be cheaper if it stays weak, but I’d much prefer to see Indian Camels perform better in the late game. They have the food and gold bonuses to support an expensive upgrade, but the value of that upgrade needs to match the price tag. Maybe roll the +1/+1 armor into the Imperial upgrade? Then their Hussars would be missing armor, but it would give them back their strong camel identity.
Shatagani : I think it would be a good change, but in addition to extra range. Extra range is supposed to make them synergize better with Elephant archers. Just 10% accuracy would be good.
Bonus pierce : replace by : Plate Barding available in Castle Age (require a Castle, to mitigate the early availability). Or just give them normal Plate Barding and keep extra pierce camels for a future civ without Imperial ones.
Elephant archers : just reduce upgrade cost or change +4 vs Standard Building / +4 vs stone defenses → +8 vs Standard Building. Obsidian Elephant would be fun (and much harder to mass than old Obsidians xbows).
Indians might be balanced, but all the points above are not very popular features. They may require a nerf somewhere in these changes.
Persians are… fine and balanced ?
Somehow I regret that the Cav Archers techs is called Parthian Tactics and Persians don’t even get FU Cav Archers but that’s about it. I get there’s a reason why they were constantly recruiting central asia mercenaries…
Just go all in castle age after boom. Indians got in insane buff for castle age play with the turk like light cav. After second armor you have 5 pa on your light cav so anything that shoots arrows will perform poorly against them. Also the cheaper vils help spamming them. Vs knights you go camel ofc and vs pikes cav archers.
Well you do have versatility with them don’t you? I mean it’s still a camel unit after all. And you have a very broad tech tree in imp with Indians.
No they really don’t. Skirms dont stand the slightest chance here.
Once another brainstorming option : remove Imperial Camels altogether and brings back the old +1/+1 armor they initially get, as well as Plate Barding. They might even get a further armor bonus in Imperial. Or +1 pierce on CA and +1 in Imp.
The concept of Camels with pierce armor to replace knights can work.
Which does not work is getting this on top of the best camels of the game.
And give Imperial Camels to some future Indians split civs that the Community is so eager to get.
Indians should be split.
So are Imperial Camels and Camels with bonus pierce.
I feel people don’t give enough credit to the Indians and it seems most forum users read somewhere they are bad after the armor change. Shatagni gives you a unit that can compete with arbalesters with one click and after the bullet change it is a great tech. The old statement of “Shatagni makes your HC worse” doesn’t work anymore and people just continue with this statement without testing it.
Indians are a pretty good civ and +1 melee armor doesn’t matter. +1 PA in castle age and +1 for free in imperial age does though