I just went vs a guy spamming Janissaries (was very all-in because he also bought 500f at the market and built 2 Castles, basically no eco approach).
Janissary is one of THE BEST targets for Shrivamsha Rider. It has low rate of fire, high base attack with single projectile. Even so, I was trading evenly AT BEST. I had to do a crazy boom, and place some ~7 Stables to be able to compete and overwhelm 2 Castle Janissary production.
Shrivamsha needs major buffs. One aspect I hadn’t considered is that the unit is individually not very pop-efficient, so you need A LOT of them regardless if you go vs mass Janissaries or mass Crossbows. The problem is that for 70f a piece, sustaining even 3 Stable production is extremely challenging in Castle age because you need some ~35 farms to do that (assuming 3 TC boom). Pop efficiency, and flooding units is not a big problem in Imperial age, but in Castle age often you are forced to do this unit also and the amount of food required is just unrealistic.
At the same time, the unit is not very versatile, far from a Knight, so the transition into Shrivamsha being THIS hard (numerous Stables, Bloodlines, numerous farms…) is not as worth it as Knights as the opponent can just transition out of Crossbows/Janissaries and you are stuck with a bunch of WORSE light cav (they are literally worse than Light cav, check the HP xd).
Turks, at the same time, particularly on Runestones/Arabia, has to be one of THE BEST matchups for Gurjaras. Turks have no Pikeman, they have no eco bonus, and their late game army composition is generally mounted (which the insane Camel Rider from Gurjaras should hard counter). But it was a very even game at best in spite of me even doing early damage with Camel Scouts.
Gurjaras are in dire need of buffs. Several ideas I have (not to be all implemented at the same time):
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the bonus from Bengalis of damage resistance is given also to/transferred to Gurjaras (only to Camel-line). This would make their Camel Riders a more generically good unit that you don’t have to immediately transition out of the moment the opponent clicks Pikeman. The civ is so heavily pigeonholed into Stable play that I think this is justified.
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you can’t convince me otherwise, though this is my opinion, but the UU is not as great as many claim. Even in high numbers, as many claim, it dies HARD to Crossbow play and any form of long range archers. Countering ONLY Halberdiers with a UU is not very interesting, I would like them to trade if not evenly with Crossbows, at least slightly below average. It’s a UU from a VERY gimmicky civ. Easy fix I can think of is give them +1 range (and reduce the “maximum hidden range” by -1 so that it doesn’t shoot farther than now).
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Sheep bonus is too weak given how much you need to do to gain an eco lead with it. SotL made a video of how if you garrison 1 sheep in a Mill, you gain the ~90f that you would gain from slaughtering it at the 25 min mark! To ensure the BO is smooth, you need to push 3-4 deer (I always pushed 4 so far but I’m fairly sure you can do only 3 also and perhaps even only 2), you need to take straggler trees and do a very late lumber camp (which doesn’t allow you a smooth Drush, for example). I think food gained from the garrison in Mill thingy needs to be +30% faster (this would make their eco Burgundians-tier I think so at that point I don’t want them to have a strong army anymore, also).
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Shrivamsha Rider, perhaps this is the key unit that makes or breaks the civ, this unit NEEDS +20 HP in both forms and maybe +1/+2 attack also. It is a very underwhelming unit, and remember that the civ doesn’t get Blast Furnace so a higher base attack makes sense (in their final Imperial Age form they have 11+2 attack which is very mediocre and barely better than a generic Hussar, I get that the unit is primarily anti-archer however it’s also a Gold unit so it should not be literally equal to a food-costing Hussar vs non-Archers). If I could pick 1 in 4 bonuses, it would be this one, after experimenting with this unit vs human opponents… very meh, I think this unit is game-losing always and even vs mass archers you shouldn’t do this unit, total trap.