Recently there was a topic created to suggest new regional units.
I was trying to come up with regional units that weren’t just glorified re-skins with tweaked stats, but new units that filled a new niche in the game. I think that’s hard to do anymore, so many units are in the game now that finding new niches is very challenging.
I created a list of the best ideas I could come up with (not good, mostly bad actually, just the best I could come up)
However one unit concept stuck with me, one I became decreasingly unsure if it was a legitimately bad idea. The Camel Monk.
Like pretty much every camel in the game it’s good against cavalry, so as a monk it’d convert cavalry faster than it’d convert other units. Presumably it’d also be less good at converting non-calvary units than other units, presumably less good than the regular monk. Presumably being a camel it’d function much like a missionary. It could heal and convert but not pick up relics.
For knights and elephants this is probably broken, they’re already pretty well countered by the regular monk. Also the logic of camels being good at fighting against cavalry translating to monks is very questionable. How is a guy on a camel being intrinsically more persuasive to a guy on a horse rational in any way? Certainly camel monk would just be some meme tier unit would it ever be added.
But then I thought, by virtue of it also being cavalry, the camel monk would be good at converting the scout line as well, flipping that counter system. Which makes it even more memey OP…or does it circle back around to being a neat meta option given the right balancing?
Let me know what you guys think. Is it an unworkable terrible meme or would it be an interesting addition to the meta? Or both lol?
PS: While the post I’d mentioned was about new regional units, feel free to also consider if this was a general unit or a UU.
Maybe it has higher resistance against scout cavalry line?
Since it’s harder to be killed by the scout cavalry line, maybe it has less HP, less range or more expensive cost in exchange?
So basically we have a mounted monk that cant be countered by scout since it convert cav faster. this leave only xbow and eagle warrior as a counter since all the camel civ(sara, hindu, gurjaras,berber) have access to redemption. Yeah too much op if you combine it with mangonel.
How about a camel-type unit with a chance to convert a unit instead of killing it?
It would have bonus attack against cavalry to make it specialized in that role, and maybe a 5% chance whenever it kills something to instead spawn a new copy of the unit on your side.
Remember hypothetically this could be a UU for a new civ so you could remove redemption from their tech tree.
But even so, having brought it up, I have to agree in general camel monk + mangonel would be very difficult to counter.
Bombard Cannons in late game would do fine, but that doesn’t help in castle.
Cav archers maybe. Your micro would have to be pretty good, and whether the camel monk would be good at converting CA is purely a hypothetical as this is presently an imaginary unit, however I assume it would. Anything else that get’s a bonus against cavalry also get a bonus against CA.
Rams with infantry might be the way to go. Even then the ram might not be fast enough to get close enough. Siege tower with 10 infantry garrisoned might be the way to go. Siege tower might actually be legitimately useful lol.
That’s it, new camel monk + mangonel vs siege tower + infantry meta. What everyone was asking for lol.