Onna musha(japanese horse archer) costs more than rus horse archer but its stats are lower.Health is lower,damage lower yes it does more damage to armored units but horse archer general damage is better i think.So onna musha needs a buff in my opinion.First it needs a health buff it cant have lower health then rus archer while costing more.Second it damage vs armor maybe increased more.
Onna musha have 1 extra range than a horse archer, with bannerman have the same attack and on top of that they have +9 vs heavy units in castle. Almost exactly the same unit but extra damage vs heavy units. Rus cavalry have special techs as well while as japanese you have those for your infantry.
It’s fine as it is.
1 Like
It has less health with more resource cost and rus horse archer can have the same range with tech,with active ability they have more range then onna musha.
It has more resource cost because it is a mobile crossbow with more range to start. The rus have special techs for their cavalry and japan have those techs for their infantry, you can’t have everything.
And japan needs a special unit for attack bonus which when it sniped bonus is gone.Also it deals less damge than crossbow to armored units.But whatever lets say ok to everything it cant have less hp than rus horse archer.
As I said you’re mentioning unique late game techs of rus to compare the units without mentioning those you have for your infantry. A mobile crossbowman that can kite archers is good enough.
No its not enough it dont have enough damage compared to horse archer which generally does good damage to everthing.Also onna musha dont hit hard as the crossbow.Also has less health which is more fragile and on top of that you pay them more.
Also have more range, more speed and with a bannerman the same attack as a crossbow.
I don’t use these units but you appear to be glossing over how this units fits/or doesn’t fit within the complete roaster??
Single comp builds are absolutely horrendous for this game. Horse archer are meant to be this single unit composition unit that has its NOW niche (use to recently be OP) role. We do NOT need the onna to be too well rounded because japanese already have some very very powerful units.
Imo your singluar unit to unit comparison is unfair. This is a tangent, but i think serves as example of what i think a comparison should look like.
When i created a thread about the Delhi War Elephant and compared to th English MAA, I pointed out how the MAAs for ENG are pivotal to everything ENGLISH!! But the WAR Elephants (of old) were meaningless mostly and you could be Delhi Optimally and never make a single WAR Elephant. And i thought this was a problem that you could play an ELEPHANTS civ and play said civ at it’s peak an not make ELEPHANTS, let alone a WAR Elephant?
So if you could argue that onna are not functional within their roaster, and there are more optimal Japanese play that would completely exclude its use? IMO, that’s a better angle, than one to one comparison in a vacuum.
Actually onna is good im ok with it but rus horse archer has more than onna with lower price.
I would like a slight cost adjustment, all of the other gold units cost an excess of 10 gold over their counterparts. The onnamusha costs 20 more gold than a crossbow, but comes with a faster movement speed and +0.5 attack range. The stats aren’t too much of an issue for me, with good micro onnamusha are very effective. My personal issue is the disparity between the costs of other Japanese UU. I feel a cost reduction to 80 food 50 gold would be reasonable.
Though, I do have to admit it is a bit silly that the Rus horse archer is a superior unit in every way aside from not having heavy counter bonus. With all researches they have + 36 health (114 vs 150). If you compare bannerman bonus to saint’s blessing, Rus horse archer deals 22 base damage compared to onnamusha’s 18.4. Movement speed bonuses being compared, horse archer moves at a flat 2.0 speed with it’s bonus, gains 2 tiles of attack range, lasts 8 seconds, cooldown of 45 seconds, activated when needed. Onnamusha moves at approx 1.8 movement speed, lasts 10 seconds, cooldown of 30 seconds, activated when in range of an enemy.
With all buffs active the horse archer is far more powerful in more circumstances than the onnamusha. The only way the onnamusha beats horse archer is when fighting heavy units. I think it is clear there is an imbalance when comparing these units.
The onna-musha is exclusively for heavy units, that is why it is the crossbow replacement. Horse archers cost considerably more than an archer so they are just a better archer that is mobile. You can’t compare them after being buffed by rus unique techs either or do you want to compare samurai to rus man at arms?
Well, that would be a comparison between a civ that has strengths in infantry and a civ that does not. Both Japanese and Rus have strengths in cavalry, but Rus has more strength there than Japanese. They also have access to one of the best handcannon in the game, the best siege in the game, the best fishing economy in the game (when considering dropoffs), and the most resource efficient cavalry archer in the game. This is all on top of being a strong feudal civ, a strong castle civ, and a strong imperial civ.
Exactly how many strengths does Rus need?
I think this is more about the horse archer being overpowered than it is the onnamusha being underpowered. My main critique is that the cost is off between the two… The camel archer is a far superior unit for many reasons, but it costs a whopping 230 resources. That’s nearly twice as much as a Rus horse archer.
The onnamusha costs 20 more resources than the horse archer, but only excels when comparing their effectiveness versus heavy units. Keep in mind Japanese has no other direct counter to heavy, while the Rus have their crossbow.
This is about the onna-musha not a comparison between rus and japan however I agree that rus is 1 of the most versatile civs in the game.
Japanese is primarily an infantry civ and rus a cavalry civ which is why japanese have unique techs especially for infantry.
The main thing with the horse archer is regular archers have a low attack with a bonus vs light melee units, the rus horse archer does not have that bonus and instead has a good base attack. This means the horse archer is good all round but not as good as archers vs light melee units and not as good as crossbows vs armored units.
If you compare the stats and the cost to a normal archer it looks fine. It just seems people want the onna-musha to be a horse archer when in reality it is just a mobile crossbow unit so specialized at taking out knights/maa and not a good all round unit like the horse archer which is worse vs heavy units.
You do over 50% more damage to armored units with onna-musha than a horse archer does and out range them by 1.0 until the imperial age. Considering this is a mobile crossbow with more range the price is reasonable. Compare instead a man at arms to a varangian guard which costs double the gold, has considerably lower hp for a tiny bit more attack now that is a bad deal.
As I said before, I believe this is an issue with the Rus horse archer being overpowered, not the onna-musha being underpowered.
CASTLE AGE, NO UPGRADES
horse archer:
80 food 40 wood
85 health
1.625 movement speed
12 attack, 4.5 range, 2.125 attack speed
onna-musha:
80 food 60 gold
80 health
1.625 movement speed
10 ( 19 vs heavy ) attack, 5.5 range, 2.125 attack speed
mangudai:
120 food 40 gold
105 health
1.563 movement speed
6 attack, 3.5 range, 0.875 attack speed, attacks while moving
camel archer:
170 food 60 wood
170 hp
1.625 movement speed
14 ( 28 vs light melee ) attack, 3.75 range, 1.375 attack speed
camel unease: 20% cav damage reduction
desert raider:
80 food 50 wood 50 gold
145 health
1.625 movement speed
6 melee armor
ranged: 9 attack, 4.5 range, 1.375 attack speed
melee: 15 ( 30 vs cavalry ), 1.25 attack speed
camel unease: 20% cav damage reduction
-BONUS-
archer:
30 food 50 wood
80 health
1.25 movement speed
7 ( 14 vs light melee ) attack, 5 range, 1.625 attack speed
crossbowman:
80 food 40 gold
80 health
1.125 movement speed
12 ( 21 vs heavy ) damage, 5 range, 2.125 attack speed
I don’t suggest a significant change here. I think that bringing the cost of onna-musha from 80 food 60 gold down to 80 food 50 gold would be enough for it… But when putting the data together it is clear that the Rus horse archer has the best stats for the cost. It appears to deserve a nerf, either by reducing its stats or increasing its cost.
Edit: I didn’t realize during my initial test that I had bannerman aura on onna-musha when looking at stats. The actual damage vs heavy w/ no upgrades is 19. For reference, the crossbowman damage is 21 vs heavy. This means that Japanese players pay an extra 20 gold for a unit that deals 2 less base damage, while moving ~44% faster and attacking .5 tiles further. Regardless of this discrepancy, it lacks the stats we can see in many other UU that have ~15% increased cost over their counterparts.
1 Like
What justifies the extra gold cost is the 22 damage vs heavy +1 range and it being mobile as a crossbow type unit. Normally a crossbow can kill man at arms fine but knights avoid them by just disengaging but that is much harder when they have almost the same movement speed.
If you add into the equation a bannerman which are available in castle this makes the onna-musha have the same attack as a horse archer as well as the bonus vs heavy and +1 range. So the onna-musha becomes a longer range horse archer in castle that can also deal with knights and maa.
In my opinion it is 1 of the most underrated units in the game, with good micro you can kite regular archers and they just cannot hit you so the lower damage doesn’t matter. In the same situation the horse archer is out ranged by regular archers and loses cost effectively.
The only time this changes is in imperial due to rus getting speciic unique techs for its horse archers but in that case you can’t really compare them straight up because japan get those techs on their samurai and rus don’t. Most games don’t go to imperial either so for the majority of the game the onna-musha is far superior and even late game it maintains its superiority vs the units it should be made to deal with, the maa and knights.
It’s difficult to add in the bannermen though. This means that you are using a bannerman token for this group of onna-musha, spending anywhere from 225 stone to 825 stone in the process. You also need to spend 140 food and 110 gold, as well 150 wood for a stable (since they can’t be trained at the archery range). All of that just to meet the horse archer’s base damage. The +1 range gives you another row of onna-musha to attack with, but you must account for the firing animation and turning time when kiting.
The horse archer already has 5 health over onna-musha. With no upgrades and no bannerman, onna-musha require 9 attacks to kill a horse archer. With a bannerman, it is reduced to 8. Meanwhile, horse archer require 7 attacks to kill onna-musha. Edit: This actually doesn’t make sense, because horse archers are also meant to be countered by ranged units. That is the imbalance described by comparing these two units… either the stats are off, or the cost is off.
Since you are accounting for a fully upgraded and accompanied onna-musha in this engagement it is only fair to do the same for the horse archer. They would have 105 health, deal 15 damage, and have 1 extra armor. Now the onna-musha needs 10 shots with a bannerman, and would die to the horse archers in 6 shots.
This is why I referred to castle age stats with no upgrades. I think you’re adding too many variables to make a fair analysis.
I agree that the onna-musha are underrated. That’s why I don’t think they need much of a change at all. Just -10 gold, to meet the rest of the Japanese UU lineup (+10 gold of standard cost). I believe the primary issue is the horse archers. They present an imbalance in the light ranged cavalry meta.
1 Like
What about their fight against other units rus horse archer can bring down french knights or amored units too.
Yes making them cheaper is another solution.
Edit:Somebody write about camel archers too i think they are fine they have good fire rate and damage also makes horses deal less damage also has bonus damage against spearmen they nearly good against anything.
As you say comparing them straight up makes little sense because horse archers counter onna musha so it shouldn’t even be a contest.
Even with no bannerman which you can get in castle the unit still performs fine, as I said before it can kite archers which are its counter albeit with very good micro, it can deal with maa easily and it can pursue escaping knights unlike a regular crossbowman, the ability to chase knights alone makes it 1 of the best units, probably the best anti-armor unit.
Even since the floating gate nerf I don’t think gold is an issue for japan as the yoshiro still provide a considerable source of passive gold. In my example with byzantines varangian guards costing double gold it is much worse as byzantine have zero passive gold and their knights cost 50% more gold. 20 gold extra when the unit is mobile and has additional range compared to a crossbow seems more than fair.
Anyhow I’d consider this a very minor issue as japan, after all japan have 1 of the best maa units in the game and best knight so if anything people who play against japan will be the one’s that are massing crossbows and in return you’ll want to be massing yumi or making mangonels.
Camel archers are a great unit, the only downside they have is the abysmal range and high cost ##### #### #### to mass initially. Once massed though they are hard to deal with as their main counter the horseman is also debuffed by them.