I think I’d like it if BE (in Castle age) forced knights into a kind of cat-and-mouse game, where the elephants have a slight advantage if they fight, but the knights have an advantage of being able to attack where the elephants are not.
I think there’s design space there where they’d be just as meta as knights, yet distinctly different.
I’m not sure whether you’d (dis)agree based on your post. You might call this a “role”.
To expand on this aim/design:
Knights can outmaneuver elephants if they’re faster than them. There’s no problem there, and this is already a feature I’ve seen played around with in team games. Making BE multi-pop units would decrease the ability of elephants to be where they need to be even further.
The cat-and-mouse game needs to be balanced, meaning there needs to be balance between the degree to which knight/BE players can damage each others base and the degree to which they can defend their own base.
I think the knight player should lose if both players send their whole military into each others base. They should only be able to clear up the invading elephants by calling back their knights. This is necessary because only the knight player really has the option of calling his army back. If the elephant player runs his BE back to his base the knights just escape. To correct for this imbalance, the knight player should be forced to make sure he can defend his base with his knights (or bluff and hope for the best).
It’d be a tricky balance to find. You’d need BE to defeat knights in the open field, but to be defeated if equal resources are invested and the knights have the home advantage (supporting TC fire, closer reinfocements, perhaps a few spearmen). At the same time BE civ vs xbow civ also needs to be balanced. The proper balance could require BE to have a bit of anti-cav attack, but it might not. I don’t know.
I’m pretty sure some of the possible designs would work, generating beautiful cat-and-mouse games and forcing archer players to defend in a (slightly) different manner than they do against knights.
Well that’s the problem, yeah? BE can be easily countered even if you screw up and let them “get there”. We allow the “if you let them get there, its your fault” logic with goths, mangudai but its not acceptable for elephants for whatever reason.
At least one should get a message like this “you tried battle elephants? We’re sorry you lost the game, but we welcome your bravery!” when you train BEs in castle age.
I was thinking in a civ bonus for the Bengalis that involves (and enhances) their elephants
What about giving them Elephants upgrades cost 50% less food as a civ bonus
What do you think?
Ot sounds interesting althlugj only would be useful in imperial age. Thew problem of such bonus is that the civ would end with huge elephant focus, so any tiny buff to battle elephants, for example, could make bengalis OP. And this situayion can be bad for other battle elephant civs
Sounds good but Bengalis need a Castle age bonus. A bonus similar to Burgundians - 50% cheaper and available in Castle age might help. But then again, BE as an unit is very hard to justify in 1v1, even for Bengalis. Also Bengalis have the most number of elephant bonuses among all. Another one is unlikely.
It looks like Bengalis improved a bit. This is only 5th day though. So not trying to stretch.
I just had another abstract idea how Eles could possibly be changed so they become more usable.
They could receive some bonus damage vs cavalry (and also a bit vs camels). To compensate for that, the current negative cav archer armor of the elephant archers is converted to an attack bonus of skirmishers against war eles. Meaning then Eles counter Cavalry but become countered by skirmishers in the exchange. With the change to skirms vs eles the bonus damage of pikes and halbs could be reduced slightly to make that counter mechanic less oppressive. For the sake of TG Balance the elite version then shouldn’t get 3 PA anymore so the bonus vs the cavalry is compensated by less tankyness vs arrowfire in the lategame.
This could give them a boost in utility in the midgame (as they then directly counter knights you can make them instead of pikes) but reduces their lategame prowess a bit.
There remain 2 general weaknesses: A) Monks B) Speed.
Both can turn out to be still hindering too much, but I think with the suggested changes there is the chancew of this being less impactful cause you would probably make the eles for defensive reasons first where mobility and conversion don’t have such a high impact.
The problem with Battle Elephants is that they are more viable in teamgames than in 1v1, so buffing them in 1v1 may make them too strong in teamgames. Luckily, there are ways to buff them in 1v1 that would not have that strong of an impact in teamgames, and I see that they are being proposed:
I like the idea of this. Personally I wouldn’t make an entirely new armor class; rather, I’d just reduce the bonus damage the Spearman line does against Elephants and give Persian War Elephants negative elephant armor to compensate for this. Or I wouldn’t compensate. After all, it is reasonable to say that War Elephants could use a buff, too. [EDIT: The Siege Elephant would need to get its cavalry armor reduced, though.] The good thing about this buff is that it has less of an impact in teamgames, as trash units, such as Pikemen, are less often seen there.
Yes! The Elite Battle Elephant upgrade is even more expensive than the Paladin upgrade, so in 1v1 games it is, like the Paladin upgrade, usually not worth it, in contrast to teamgames where you can afford to focus on a single unit. But in 1v1, a Knight player can at least for quite a low price upgrade its Knights to Cavalier. A player who had gone Battle Elephants will instead just fight with Castle Age units. Making Elite Battle Elephants viable to tech into in 1v1 by reducing its price will help balancing the unit.
I didn’t think monk armor will have any noticeable impact. But it does.
Note: Keep in mind his opponent was Magyars and had free attack upgrade. So this is the worst possible case and still the bonus was noticeable. And Viper didn’t have Sanctity researched.
EA is way better against skirmishers. And they are probably a viable unit.
Note: This is Bengalis that takes 4 less damage from skirmishers compared to previous patch. Others take 3 less. Also they are the only one with PT.
They deserve elite BE and Husbandry. Medical Corps should also make Monks heal faster.
Give Thumb Ring, remove Bracer, and make Paiks also +1 range to EA and UU.
How about this way? The rate of fire provided by Paiks and TR may make up for the -1 attack in my opinion.
Bracer affects defensive buildings as well. Bengalis late game defense at first I thought really good but later realize without Hoardings and BBT, this is average at best. With your change late game defense will be worse for a civ that is supposed to be strong in late game. And obviously a nerf to Ratha and EA even. Dravidians EA fire still faster and they have more attack.
If our standard is to compare them to Dravidians, I still think losing Bracer and giving TR and making Paiks +1 range to EA and UU is acceptable for the Bengalis. Even though the Bengali EA has 1 less damage in comparison, the rate of fire is only 5% slower and it has Bloodline, Husbandry (for now), bonus damage reduction, convert resistance and Parthian Tactics (which may even be accessable in the Castle age with your advice). Regarding defense, they deserve Hoardings, as many civilizations with good ranged UUs do. Regarding the Ratha, the elite can have +1 pierce attack.
Or can we keep both TR and Bracer, but lose Arbalesters?
BE with 12 attack and 250 HP is acceptable, but Elite BE with 14 attack and 300HP not acceptable?
Well I can’t sure whether the elite would break the balance with their stable unit being so weak.
Or, it may be necessary to have the elite upgrade to have the opportunity to attract people to use BE.
They have nothing else going for them. Dravidians are the only Ele civ that misses Husbandry, which is a hugely limiting factor even if their BEs had great DPS. (Also miss bloodlines, Malay being the only other Ele civ that does). In practice, vs most units they would play out similarly to Tusk Swords BEs as far as DPS, but they’d still lack the +20% speed of Khmer BEs and the great supporting Khmer food eco. When it comes to the odd cases of going up against units with high melee armor (TK, Boyar), there’s no reason to make (even Elite) BEs to counter them when you can have the effect much more cheaply with spear/sword line or even Urumis.
The other viable option is just to remove BE from them, as there is currently no case in which it’s a decent idea to make them.
