New shotel warrior are like huskarls vs cav archer

With royal heirs, shotel warrior takes only 3 damage per shot from cav archers, while having 22 attack. It is similar to a huskarl or Aztec elite eagle in terms of attack and tankyness. Is this intended? My thought is they should only get extra melee armour against mounted units not ranged

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The change is way too strong indeed. I don’t think the developers know what they are doing in this case.

Yes. This makes cav archer much worse than foot archer vs shotels. It is unjustifiable. Why should cav archer do so much worse than foot archer, to a melee infantry?

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I already posted in another thread earlier that new royal heirs feels a bit busted to me. A very unnecessary big buff for a not weak civ

Should be +2 armor and not 3, and/or being only melee.

That sayd, huskarl have more HP and are more well roubded against arrows and not Just CA so they do not compare perfectly, but yes, new shotels are going to be too strong imho

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I am surprised why the devs in the first place buffed a civ like Ethiopians.
These new bonuses for Ethiopians will make them so annoying to deal with them especially their imabalnced UU.

It is healthy to have a hard counter to Mongol play. Tatar players still have options.

Mongols Tatars berbers huns will really struggle vs ethiopian

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because they are 1 of like 3 civs without Champion and are a fairly 1 trick archer civ and one of the units archers was historically strong against just got a major buff vs archers.

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They are buffing shotel warrior because it is really weak, it loses vs most infantry units or trade inefficiently given its cost, but having extra PA against cav archers seems like a bug just like the costiller doing more damage at cav archer on their release.

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I don’t think it is a bug, because they said it takes less damage from all mounted units, so CA also as a mounted unit will do less damage.

Anyway I totally disagree with this buff for Ethiopians, I am even against buffing Ethiopians at any shape. This civ is fine and didn’t need a buff.

I’m sorry but suggesting that Shotels will counter ranged mounted units because they take less damage is incredibly naive to the point I would sincerely ask you if you are trolling. Just kite to a Castle like usual, and Shotels will die like usual. You still got mobility advantage + Shotels still die to Castles + they probably still die to the Hussar/HCA combo which is stronger than basically anything Ethiopians can do late game. If Ethiopians can spam Shotels late game now, good for them, their late game was notoriously lackluster on maps like Arabia already.

right, because cav archer civ goes cav archer, right? It’s not like those civs have also other units that are strong, and often, fully upgraded, in case of Berbers and Tatars, for example you could add Handcannoneers, in case of Huns, you could consider Paladins or Hussars, in case of Mongols, who cares if Mangudai do 4 damage per shot, their firerate is still insane and in any case you should still be fighting under Castles + supply a Hussar meatshield.

Really logic of a 1000 elo to think Ethiopians vs Huns will play out necessarily in Imperial and both players pigeonhole into 1 unit, Shotels and HCA respectively.

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I am glad to see new shotel can defend their base+siege well against hussar. But I find it wierd shotel take less dmg from CA while same fmg from foot archers.

Besides, I wonder why Ethiopians get the stone-free outpost instead of portuguese, while portuguese, as a top naval civ, got a nice wood bonus.

I am sorry I sincerely believe you don’t even play the game. Or you are trolling. When a fast moving infantry take so little damage, like huskarl and elite eagles, how do you kite forever and lose all the ground. CA also has a terrible animation. Theoretically you can just say oh CA can just kite the huskarls because they are faster, eventually they will kill them. Or you can say mamelukes can kite teutonic knight, axeman can kite against boyars, eventually they kill

Everything die to castles. You dont need to bring up shotels die to castles. Opponent is not dumb enough to run shotels into your castle. If your CA need a castle behind and sit next to castles to beat shotels, it means CA can’t beat shotel. You just admitted it.

Finally, shotels wreck hussar + HCA. That’s my point. They shouldn’t but in this patch with royal heirs they do. They trade evenly with paladins. Hussar is a piece of paper. HCA does only 3 dmg and melt to shotels. That’s the whole point of my post.

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I think shotel’s bonus armor against cavalry should only work against melee cavalry. But comparing it with Huskarls are far too exaggeration. It will still get 3 damage from HCA and 4 damage from Elite Mangudai/Camel Archer. it is 3times/2 times more than Elite Huskarls which takes 1/2 damage from each.

Also shotel has low HP and 17 HCA or 13 Elite Mangudai will be enough to one-shot shotel. Also it slightly weaker than Aztec Eagle which is faster and have slightly more HP. Now shotel is good combination with seige/archer against cavalry which is good.

I don’t get why people still think Ethiopians is like good civ with outdated info/meta. Ethiopians have almost never picked in tournament after archer nerf and they are too one-trick pony that only have good archer with mediocre eco. It is good that they have option other than archer. (Their good seige is generally not viable in open map.)

I understand. But only camel getting the effect was enough. Buffing Shotel was unnecessary. I’m not complaining to see an underused UU getting buff though.

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Don’t think its intentional but I’m glad it happened. Those units were practically too niche and mostly used just against a few civs like Aztecs. Since its behind UT and not for free, I think Ethiopians will become top tier but not a broken civ. As a civ, current Ethiopians are quite decent, nothing great but nothing to complain either. When an average civ rises up to top-tier, especially by buffing an under-used unit, it changes the way the civ is played and also how other civs play against it. I think its overall a good change conceptually and prevents Ethiopians from being a one-trick archer civ.

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losing ground isn’t very important, because opponent can’t sustain spam of gold units forever. Unlike Huskarls, Shotels have bad HP. They really melt to Castles. But in case you didn’t know, yes, with units like HCA, or Arbalest, you always give ground and kite to a Castle, that’s like the default strat with ranged units, ranged units aren’t strong enough to fight melee units cost-efficiently in this game. Losing ground isn’t a huge deal because even if you lose a bit of eco, opponent is investing gold units, so you can just rebuild your eco elsewhere. It really plays out in the same way as when opponent clicks Paladin, raids 50% of your eco, you rebuild and the game is still even because he did a big investment. Shotels get pitiful HP so can’t run under Castles, while Paladin definitely can, so you can’t even argue that you can push Castles with Siege + Shotel combo (you can with Paladin + siege however).

yes this is how the game works. HCA, Arbalest are units that require micro. You can also use tricks like put them inside a forest pocket or a 1-tile stone wall corridor. Or add secondary unit you know. I love how you considered my Hussar suggestion but totally ignored that 2/4 civs you listed have Handcannoneer, for example. From memory, Champion also trades evenly vs Shotels while costing less gold. In any case, spamming 30g Shotels to wipe the enemy base requires:

a) multiple Castles
b) good gold supply
c) the game going to late Castle age/early Imperial

Which shows you already made multiple mistakes, letting opponent build multiple Castles, or deciding to fight in Imp. Not every game has to be a 200 pop vs 200 pop battle in Imp, in many games you can get a lead in Castle age learn to do that. In fact the more you climb, the more interesting the game becomes because people skip Feudal + Castle ages less.

you actually do because like I explained, ranged units kite back to Castles, they aren’t strong enough to fight in melee on their own. You either perma micro your CA, or you micro them until you reach a Castle so that you dissuade the opponent from fighting you further. That’s like how every ranged unit works.

yes that’s how every ranged unit works. No it doesn’t mean the ranged unit is bad. The alternative is, you can perma micro your CA, your choice. You are asking ranged units to work like melee units, i.e. win with 0 micro but that’s now how they are designed.

I really have a hard time believing it. Probably you don’t understand that Hussar is a meat shield only, not a trading unit. The point of Hussar + HCA is that you can spam Hussar forever while kiting back less and only if needed with the HCA core. The point of the comp is not to brute force anything and everything, the idea is to give you more breathing room while spamming a TRASH unit that you can make forever.

I really have a hard time believing that, could you post tests about it please? Not like, your impression. The last time I tested, Shotels trade about evenly vs Champion, I doubt they can do well vs Paladin, Royal Heirs or not.

Yes and my suggestion is l2p, kite back to a Castle or transition to another unit, luckily all the civs you posted have multiple ways of winning the game, for example with Mongols you could consider Onagers, with Tatars, a core of 10-15 Handcannoneers.

Ethiopians got hit hard by the Arbalest nerf from a few months ago. Now, one of the units the civ is supposed to be good against, Militia-line, is also getting buffed. The civ is also notoriously 1 tricky, most pros rate it mid-tier, in spite of their bonus (+18% firerate) being fairly insane on paper. This is because they hit a hard wall if you open Skirms in Castle age, and as Ethiopians you can’t comfortably afford Knight + Crossbow combo while having a good eco. Sure you could go Knight + Crossbow with 1 TC, but then if you want this all-in style, why aren’t you picking a civ that is better at it, like Portuguese, Franks or even Aztecs. Ethiopians also have a rly bad Stable, missing Bloodlines AND last armor, so you really need to leverage those Knights in Castle Age, something not always possible. Overall this means that most of the times you play defensive Xbow + Mangonel + 3 TC, go to Imp, and at that point, Ethiopians are much weaker (Torsion Engines isn’t rly a thing in 1v1 Arabia and that’s like the 1 good tech Ethiopians have in Imp). Since Torsion Engines doesn’t really give you an advantage, and Arbalest isn’t a good unit in Imperial age anymore, to the point most pros don’t bother clicking the Arbalest upgrade anymore, typically your Imp as Ethiopians looks like, Halb, Bombard Cannon and a bunch of Hussars with 75 HP and lacking the last armor. Really if this is what you want to play in Imp, almost 70% of the civs play this style better, hell I’d even rather be Persians than Ethiopians at that point, you lose Siege Engineers but gain a much better Hussar.

I understand that Shotels resisting Cav Archers was probably an unintended consequence that many didn’t see coming, but I also think people are largely overreacting, Ethiopians were top 25-top 20 on Arabia before this buff, and will be maybe top 20-top 15 after it. The civ is mostly useless like before because you can’t play Archer-line the whole game like you could time ago.

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I think the change is fun and interesting (but also kind of random). I think resisting 2 damage would have been good enough, but I don’t think 3 will be broken. We’ll see, anyways.

Just wanted to point out that the way the bonus is designed, all the current effects have to be intentional. Cav archers and all other units affected by this specifically had -3 attack for the relevant armor class added to their individual stats, which is not the kind of thing that happens by accident.

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What I meant was the devs probably wanted shotels to be less vulnerable to melee cavalry units but cavalry archers doing less damage because of belonging to “cavalry” armor class might have been unintentional. They probably didn’t want shotels to be specifically good against CA civs but its coming along as an added effect. Nevertheless its still a good thing to buff that unit.

I dont think it will make that much diff, ethiopians already have good food archer, skirmishers and sieges so they dont need shotels to deal with cav archers but some cav based civs will struggle a lot against ethiopians.
Generic knight has 12 ap, sw has 5 armor vs cavs 45 hp so 8 hits to kill a shotel. Shotel has 18 ap, cav has 4 armor and 120 hp. 9 hits to kill a knight. That means 2 shotel cost nearly same with 1 knight but shotels do better vs knights.
Generic cav has 16 ap, esw has 6 armor vs cavs 50 hp so 5 hits to kill a shotel. Esw has 22 ap, cav has 5 armor and 140 hp. 9 hits to kill a knight. That means 2 esw cost nealy same with a cavalier but do equal vs a cavalier. I did not add upgrade costs but it seems like worth to mass esw by now.