I think the whole concept of the italian UU is to have an easy additon to the xbow line against cavalry units.
Some easy addition, that mixed in makes their archers/xbows better if the opponent uses mainly cavalry.
But currently they have different. “utlilization” stats than the x-bows.
My proposal:
Make GC be basically xbows with some bonus against Cavalry, Camels, Elephants (and even +1 vs Eagles).
Remove the Elite GC upgrade but instead bind it to the Arbalester uprgade.
That’s it.
Why are people trying to make unique units less unique?
This is a terrible idea.
What would you give them as castle UU instead?
Because of allt he UUs GC is the one which is the closest to the generic unit.
And it would actually make it unique among the UUs to be that close to the common unit and can just be “mixed in” with them.
I think it would actually be kinda unique to have a UU that’s basicllay just a “common unit” with some special bonus damage that can be mixed in with that common unit.
Also from my own experience the current different utility stats are the main issue why GCs are hardly ever used. Italians aren’t a civ that usually comes out of feudal with an advantage. Meaning, they usually behind in Castle Age. Other than a lot of other civs, they can’t afford a hard transion, especially not to a UU which needs a castle to produce. So usually they just stay with the archer line and as the GCs have these different utility stats there is no real opportunity to make a “smooth” transition.
Which means despite the unit feeling good on paper, you often just don’t have the opportunity to go for it, which is really a shame, as it has so much potential to be “iconic”.
The GC remain as their Castle Unit. Just the upgrade is removed and instead bound to the Arbalester upgrade.
So they can’t train anything in the castle except petards in castle age? In this case I disagree. Doesn’t make sense to me if you don’t propose such a big change to replace their UU.
Or maybe you mean that by researching arbalesters they get elite GC? I really don’t see the logic in it.
The logic is that you mix in GC in castle age with your normal crossbows.
And when you research Arbalest both units get upgraded at once, so they stay bound together and you don’t have to make two different upgrades for possily one single control group.
Is it so hard to understnad?
GC are then just a “specialised” crossbow that deals bonus vs certain units. An easy addition. Easy to understand, easy to use in and just like your typical xbows/arbs.
False. The Longbowman is closest to being generic. At least this one has a special bonus that gives it a unique role.
Nah, the logbow is much more different.
YOu’d know when you use them.
Also longbow needs to be different in utility as it has no special bonus. But that’s exactly what GC have.
And what allows them to have such close utilization stats. It’s just, they are close, but they aren’t quite there yet.
So the whole idea of mixing them in to make the whole army better against cav doesn’t work, you still have that hard transtion for italians which is in most cases just not possible.
I have used them. And they’re very similar to the Crossbow. Did you think I would’ve made my post asking for more differentiation without having experience with using them?
But the GC is different in utility. You mass it when the opponent goes mass cavalry. You shouldn’t do that with Crossbows. Both are still weak to Onagers, but that’s what BBCs are for.
It does work, and it is possible to transition. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be.
1111111111111111111111111111111
What games do you play?
Sorry, but you basicaly never get the opportunity in competitive games.
Maybe if you play 800 elo and you opponent is super behind already. But no, in competitive aoe2 rarely the case. You aren’t given the opportunity, sorry. That’s how the game work these days.
??? Sorry just no. It’s a hard transiotion usually tried to execute in the transitioning to the endgame. There’s no miing in, it’s usually attempted only against specific civs you know have no real answer to that, cause it’s far too risky to execute against most other civs.
YOu can’t mix them cause the diferent utilization stats of the GC would make the xbows/arbs way less effective. It just doesn’t work.
I’ve the feeling you are soaking something up your shoes. I don’t get any feeling you actually know what your talking about. When you say longbows would behabve basically as xbows/arbs… Sorry that’s just wrong. Maybe their Range difference isn’t as big for britons, which is actually the main selling point for the longbows. But they are way different in their utilization.
In your thread I thought you speak about that issue for britons, that longbows only give one more range, which is often not that big of an advantage. Cause from how they need to be utilized longbowes are actually way different than the archer line. It’s a completely different behaviour.
Such blatant mockery is both rude and uncalled for. Don’t discount other people’s experiences just because they’re worse at the game than you.
AoE2 is not only competitive. It’s mostly casual, actually. And in casual games, GCs have a clear utility. Not so with the Longbow.
And I’ve got the feeling you think casual players aren’t worth listening to.
Bro, their stats are 99% identical! You can’t seriously tell me that they have different utilities. Name me three things that the Longbowman does differently than X-bows. If you can’t do that, then they’re too similar. GCs not only have better stats across the board, but they have an attack bonus against one of the main counters to archers, and they have perfect accuracy inherently, making Thumb Ring less of a priority. That’s three things right there. What does the Longbow have? 1 or 2 more range. Woo. Just about everything else is identical.
Please explain to me what Longbows can do that Crossbows can’t.
You just need to micro them and you will immediatley notice.
They need to be microed completely different to the normal xbow line to be effective.
GC you can basically micro like normal xbows/arbs. It’s just when you mix them in with your xbows/arbs you will lose some features wher GCs are just not on the xbow level.
Longwboes on the other hand require completely different handling. It’s not about their sheer stats, which are actually quite high. But they have so different effective combat behaviour you can’t use them baiscally as xbows.
When you think xbows are unforgiving, longwbows are that squared. They are super revarding aswell when you use them wel, but when not, they are sometimes even a pain in the ass.
But you have to push the lines to their limits to actually see that and how big dhe differences in utilization actually are.
BTW I am fully for making the Longbows more “unique” in the sense of diversifying the range. Also actually because of the utilitzation issue. I didn’t wanted to make a thing of it in your thread.
But here with the GC the other way around is actually the better way to go.
Italians would greatly benefit from GC being mixed in with their xbows/arbs. It just makes more sense from the whole design of the civ. The civ is designed around tech advnatages, which they can’t utilize when they have to pay double for unit upgrades. So italians are required to decide atm.
And it’s clear that they decide jsut for the standard archer line when they try to utilize their only “eco” bonus in timing advantage - as when they go for that they need to go for lower eco. Which means they don’t have the eco for a double unit upgrade. And castles as producion buildings for a main unit choice are just too expensive, especially when you try to go lower eco.
Maybe the upgrade for Elite GC should just be cheaper. They otherwise benefit from most of the same techs. Or maybe to solve your problem, Archery Range unit upgrades can be rolled into the cheaper Dock and University techs bonus (I think it’s those two, IIRC). That might solve the problem you’re talking about, though I never have a problem affording both UUs and generic units in my experience, because I’m always floating tons of resources, even with bad eco (floating resources is a problem of its own). More optimal play will make it significantly different, though I don’t expect the majority of the playerbase to be optimal.
Please keep in mind, competitive players basically play the game to win, not to have fun. So of course many of the more fun aspects of the game will be ignored. That doesn’t mean they’re bad, just that they don’t fit a competitive player’s playstyle.
And that’s exaclty what competitive aoe2 tries to avoid.
… I jsut don’t ee how my suggestion would negatively influence notcompetitive AOE2
GC would still be good vs Cavalry. And you would still be able to mass GC vs heavy cavalry users.
The difference is mainly only for competitive play as there GC would finally be a viable unit as it would have a smooth transition/addition to your standard xbow play.
Ok I think you see it more from a technical perspective of simplifying the game while I’d like to make it more ambitious.
I think both longbows and GC have something unique but if I had to choose I’d say GC is more unique because no archer in game have a bonus against cavalry, usually cavalry counters archers so GC is pretty unique in this.
Longbows would be unique if Britons didn’t have already the bonus range for all archers including arbalests, in this case makes sense to replace crossbow and arbalest to longbows and elite longbows as to allow space for another UU in the castle. Otherwise just take away the archer general bonus range of Britons and you can keep longbows as they are.
As for Italians, what you propose would make sense if they had a bonus against cavalry applying to all their archers, but being this not the case, GC and the archer line are actually pretty different units. So Italians are a better designed civ than Britons from this pov.
What would make sense imho would be to replace crossbows and arbalests, as for Britons, for CG and elite CG but only if you’re going to give them another UU to train in the castle which, like for Britons, will not be an archer.
Anyway I think both civs should be split at a certain point. Britons and Welsh (sharing longbows) and Italians (in land northern and central Italy) and Genoeses (maybe sharing condottiero but I’m not sure).
It looks quite confusing at the very beginning. But the idea is to remove costly elite GC upgrade and then GC become elite after arbalest upgrade, right?
Serjeant and scout cavalry get their stats improved after age up. So I think this is easier to be implemented like those units. But I dont prefer to change elite GC in that way.
While I agree GC is hard to produce in the current meta, GC is still good in team games, closed maps and some hybrid maps. (even though hera also said GC is good on paper)
GC is quite unique as an archer even shred ships, elephants and paladin imo.
I don’t know what is happening with suggestions regarding UUs lately, arguing that they aren’t “unique” enough…
I can understand a call for balance, and I’m the first to admit that the GC might need some tweaks, but making them more generic and tied to the arbs, completely changing the nature of a unit that has its own place?
The GC have 10 more HP and +1 base MA, start in castle age with +1 attack and add on top of that +5/7 bonus against cavalry, which automatically makes them the terror of any cavalry civilization.
Their cost too is different, being a bit more weight towards wood than gold. The only thing that I would change is their elite upgrade, either having it give an extra +5 HP or reducing it’s cost a bit, since it’s quite overpriced for what it does, but it’s not like it’s the end of the world…
…no?
An Archer unit that counters Cavalry is definitely unique among Archer UUs. You could say the same for any other Archer UU, f.e. Plumed Archer is just Arbalester with more armor and speed, Rattan is just standard Arbalester with way more pierce armor, Chukonu is just an Arbalester that shoots multiple arrows!
You could expand that reasoning to most other UUs. Coustilier is just Paladin that has a charge attack, Leitis is just Paladin that ignores armor, Conquistador is a Hand Cannoneer on a horse and no bonus damage, etc…
This is very convoluted for something that doesn’t really fix the problem, which is that GC is hard to be massed. You don’t really need the Elite upgrade for GC anyway (it’s nice to get, but they’ll do the job fine without Elite), and depending on the game state you might have lost most of your castles anyway.
This is a good thing, because GC completely counters some civs. What’s Huns meant to do against GC + Hussar? Win the game before the GC become unplayable against, duh! If GC was easily massed, they wouldn’t really even get a window for it.
What you said for Longbowmen also apply for GC. IDK what exactly you’re talking about here. Compare Crossbowman/Arbalester with GC and Longbowman, Arbalester has a longer frame delay and shorter Attack Delay than both. Longbowman has shorter frame delay than GC.
I hardly think the difference is that distinct when you compare both armies placing both Arbalesters and their UU together into one control group. Longbowman being an Archer UU that just has more range is 100% correct in the way you’ve said GC is not unique.
And all of this is a long-winded way of explaining that you just don’t want to pay the Elite UU upgrade cost and roll it into one with Arbalester upgrade. That’s weird - if anything, just make the Elite UU cheaper. But again, you don’t even really need the Elite. All you’re getting is a +2 bonus damage and +5 HP. You might think the +2 bonus damage is a lot considering how Archers really depend on getting 1-2 more damage, but that is already on top of their +5 bonus damage for Castle version! The GC kill cavalry just fine with or without the additional +2 bonus damage!
I think the fact you can’t easily mass GC is not a problem, it would be otherwise. Cavalry is a natural counter to archers so having an archer inverting it is by itself pretty strong and unique because in one shot you (partially) delete the counter and you counter it! Normally this would be op but having an expensive UU to do it it’s acceptable.
Again I don’t have a solid grasp of what is strong or not in this game but this sounds pretty logical to me.
It’s actually an intereting idea for Italians.
They could get Arbalester and Elite GC upgrade for free or cost-free (still research time required).
This would play smoothly into their concept of getting the age-ups cheaper to get that tech advantage.
In compensation the Tech discount could be reduced slighly.
That would be a really intereting bonus. And imo not Overpowered, as these both upgrades as mentioned don’t give that much and often have lower priority than the other techs beneffiting the units.
Imo the bonus damage is actually a bit too high for the cost. I wasn’t sure about how much I would decrease it, so I didn’t explicitely said it in the opening post.
But clearly an archer unit that deals more than 3x the damage against Paladin has a high potetnial to be “broken” against cav (archer) civs, once you get to that needed mass - which is actually way lower than for all the other archer units. 30 GC can be already almost unstoppable for some civs in the current design.
Imo when the unit is adjsuted to be taht easy addition to the common archer mass, I could see the Bonus damage reduced to up to +3 / +4 (elite)
And it’s also one of the main reasons why I want it to be even more xbow-like. Cause this would allow to make the unit less oppressive against these few civs that struggle with it.
It’s almost always the Issue with the units that have the potential to completely dominate some common civ designs, they need to be compensated in other fashion. And for the GC atm it’s that you very often just don’t get the opportunity to go for them.
I spoke about the utilty stats, not the counter mechanics…
They are already close enough for a smooth transition. For Cavalry the margin for utility is actually way wider anyways. There is no need to improve that, cause they already allow for that transition/mixing.
We see it’s already a thing for Cavalry UUs, so why don’t we have at least one Archer UU that is Unique by having the same utility stats as xbows so you can mix it in?
I’m getting sick that there is always this double standard. For Cav we allow, even promote this kind of things but if there is just one proposal to give a single Archer UU the same smooth transition it’s “unprecedented” and “weird”.
Do you spot your mistake? You say the issue would be it’s too hard to mass GC, but at the same time you say what happens if it would be more easy to mass them.
No. First there is no real issue with the current GC design. It’s somwhat balanced. But the way it is designed. As you said it has the potential to completely shut down certain civs when you get that critical mass. But this requires to make the Transition so weird/hard atm for balance reasons.
I think it would be better if this shutdown element would be cut down a bit ### instead make it easier to transition into it. Best if the GC would just be mixed in small numbers to the xbow mass. xbows/arbs btw add that bonus damage vs the spear line aswel, which synergizes well with the italian hussar as meatshield. GC don’t have that.
That’s the concept of these OG civs with their special UUs. These few UUs are intentiaonally designed to counter specific unit classes that otherways are kinda countering them.
Huskarl
Cataphract
Condottiero
GC
In the case of Huskarl and Cataphracts the civs are basically entirely designed around these units. Only the GC for some reason isn’t used that way as Huskarl and Cataphracts. (Also again, Cavalry like so often gets some “special treatment” here btw - as the UU that is supposed to counter it is so often just not justificable to transition into)
But let’s don’t open that box. But I have the feeling that some of that opposition here in the thread is mainly cause of the fear that GC could somehow be “enabled” and cav players fear the unit for good reason in it’s current design.
But that’s also the thing, which I think a lot haven’t understood yet. The concept I propose is intended to reduce the sheer oppressiveness of the GC vs cavalry.
I just didn’ gave numbers for that in the opening post, as it’s hard to come up with exact numbers when utility stats are changed
The intention is to make the GC an addiotion for the Italian archer play that make it just generally a bit stronger if the opponent plays mainly cavalry. And not to make the GC just easier to get to, so italains can completely dominate these civs in the lategame.
Just to make the GC more of a part of the common Italian gameplan but in the exchange also take away some of the funky/oppressiveness of the unit against certain civs.