Poll - New Bonus for Dravidian Stable & Battle elephants in castle age

[benithisrael]

@SMUM15236

I totally hate them getting husbandry though. Should get the old Persian UT Mahout instead.

I myself advocated that Dravidians should get ‘Mahouts’ instead of ‘medical corps’. It would have been quite easy to just give a 25% speed boost to elephants without changing original design.

@SMUM15236

@benithisrael

Woots steel light cav still don’t have last armour upgrade. They die to any range units and the low 60 HP means that they are no better than urumi. Both urumi & light cav are good at defense against melee units. But you can’t use them as part of a death ball composition.

They are still 1000x better than Urumi due to speed and no gold cost. But you should accept their actual trash tier horse unit and maybe ask for better melee elephant unit bonuses. Like a trash or almost trash Battle Elephant or even Siege Elephant will be quite good for both balance and design.

60 HP is even worse than elite Urumi(65) and both have equal armour when fully upgraded. Its better if light cav got the benefit of medical corps at least. Its effectively just +1/+1 armour in 1vs1 fights. A trash battle elephant is a better idea as a raiding unit in imp since pierce armour is more important than speed at that point of the game.

@Pulikesi25

@JasuniSmith

You don’t need to catch up to enemy cavalry units if you have an army threatening their base. And even if you did, Dravidians with husbandry are still less mobile than Teutons without it. I think husbandry was really intended to buff their elephant archers so that they aren’t outsped by enemy ranged units (like skirms). It also should help them move between battlefields, but that’s a small improvement.

This is again true if you have a bonus like Malay for faster up time or an eco like Shu or Vikings. With civs like that, atleast 70% of the time you’ll hit imp sooner and get bracer, defensive castle much sooner. Then the mobility disadvantage gets neutralized to some extent. However, 400 wood + maybe another 200 from mangonels is a mediocre bonus compared to what Vikings, Shu or Malay get. Its a decent bonus for a civ that has nearly a full tech tree and misses just 1 or 2 important techs but not for a civ that lacks bloodlines, knight line with no replacement, CA line with no replacement, terrible monks.

@JasuniSmith

Don’t really need the mining upgrades for a boom: booms take wood/food. Some stone as well for TCs, but you don’t need the stone mining upgrade for that (and definitely not the second one). Missing the second gold mining upgrade isn’t ideal, but putting a few extra villagers on gold will make up for that. And Vikings are probably the worst civ for booming (weak late-game comps, and their economy bonus is timing-based, not a permanent boost).

I agree that its a minor requirement but for an archer civ that attempts to go imperial age with 70-80 pop to have the timing lead and get bracer fast, the second gold mining upgrade is quite useful. Again if you have an insane top tier economy, its fine to not have 2nd mining upgrade but this is mediocre eco bonus, huge military weakness AND no 2nd mining upgrade. Malay 5 extra vills from the age up bonus until castle age, Vikings 5 vills from time saved on wheelbarrow+handcart, Shu 40 on wood with bow saw is equivalent to 5 vills on farms with wheelbarrow. For Dravidians, you can’t get those 5 vills from anywhere.

@JasuniSmith

Apologies. I did cross a line there. BBCs hold a different role than trebuchets do, being specialized against enemy siege units while trebs specialize against buildings.

I do maintain that there are several ways to close out a game. The only ones Dravidians seem locked out of to me are raiding an enemy to death and massed monks (missing redemption hurts this micro-intensive method).

If you don’t have good cavalry or their counter like monks, then you can’t do much in castle age to aggressively expand map control. The only option for Dravidians is an archer or siege deathball with extremely good dps like celts, ethiopions. Only Elephant archers have the DPS for Dravidians, but their eco is not as good as vikings or khmer to go early into farms. So a weird siege discount has been given to make up for their poor wood savings on their original discount. It has lead to a situation where a scorpion which has the same cost as elephant archer under normal circumstances but with better dps has become cheaper. So the elephant archer unit is redundant in castle age and Dravidian economy remains setup for wood and gold units well into imp especially on open maps and water maps. However their Siege is nothing special and struggle at that stage against all non-meso civs.

@MadMax8915

I have no idea if this archer elephant is powerful in tournaments or not. I just wish it was more fun to use.

@MadMax8915

In a practical test… the Dravidians have the best elephant archers on the offensive, “but they have a huge Achilles’ heel here”, rsrsrsrsrs, because their elephants have less health, so they are killed more quickly.

This reminds me of some old championships I watched, where the Dravidian elephant archers, when fought with certain units, died quickly.

Elephant archers of dravidians have good enough DPS. But they can’t run from their counters such as skirms and pikes like cav archers can. Husbandry is not enough. May be another speed effect on top of it may be required like

Equestrian Archery - Archery range units move 10% faster

Syed Khazi Tajudeen, a direct descendant from the bloodline of Prophet Mohammed who was sent to south India by the Arabian caliphates to sell pure breeds of racing Arabian horses for Equestrian Archery to the Pandya king Soundrarapandyan took over as the chief instructor of Equestrian Archery for the Pandya king.

Maybe a bonus like ‘equestrian archery’ could make EA more fun to use and give a niche to Dravidian archery units. To balance the design however, ‘Hand cannoneer’ would need to be removed. But its okay since Dravidians have other anti-infantry options.

From a gameplay sense, due to wood bonus, Dravidians are better off playing archers → siege. Dravidians keeping their economy wood and gold units focussed is wise since they lack the food eco to make elephants anyway. However their Siege needs to be qualitatively better than opponent since they lack siege engineers. Or else a defensive bonus is needed which will make it very hard to push Dravidians base. @Pulikesi25 and @filtercoffee488 had suggested a bonus to increase range of towers and TCs. If feudal towers and TCs get a +1 range advantage on arriving in castle age that itself will help Dravidians playstyle a lot in castle age even without cavalry or monks

New bonus - Fortification buildings and TCs +1 range, LOS starting in castle age

Affects Outpost, towers, TCs, Castles, Sea towers and Bombard towers.

[SMUM15236]

@benithisrael

I myself advocated that Dravidians should get ‘Mahouts’ instead of ‘medical corps’. It would have been quite easy to just give a 25% speed boost to elephants without changing original design.

Same. I will go for even 30% as long as Husbandry is removed.

@benithisrael

60 HP is even worse than elite Urumi(65) and both have equal armour when fully upgraded.

When it comes to raiding, 5 HP means nothing against castle fire. Dravidian LC is the 2nd worst after Vikings, maybe 3rd as Teutons Scout Cavalry has really low attack, but it is still their best raiding unit without any doubt.

[JoJo9942]

@MadMax8915

but they have a huge Achilles’ heel here”, rsrsrsrsrs, because their elephants have less health, so they are killed more quickly.

its just 20HP difference, bloodlines is not that effective for high HP units like elephants like it is for hussar or knight or cav archer

[Apocalypso4826]

@SMUM15236

Same. I will go for even 30% as long as Husbandry is removed.

You really want the Dravidians to be bad that much? Because they will never be good if they can’t raid.

[benithisrael]

@Apocalypso4826

@SMUM15236

Same. I will go for even 30% as long as Husbandry is removed.

You really want the Dravidians to be bad that much? Because they will never be good if they can’t raid.

Dravidians will be amazing. If ‘mahouts’ was implemented, Dravidians could do a 'schlasta previlages’que elephant rush in an all-in play. Dravidians don’t get any advantages on their siege in imp. Its better to finish the game in castle age.

@SMUM15236

When it comes to raiding, 5 HP means nothing against castle fire. Dravidian LC is the 2nd worst after Vikings, maybe 3rd as Teutons Scout Cavalry has really low attack, but it is still their best raiding unit without any doubt.

For dravidians, light cav for raiding is not always feasible if there is TC fire.

@JoJo9942

@MadMax8915

I have no idea if this archer elephant is powerful in tournaments or not. I just wish it was more fun to use

Dravidian EAs surely are

All elephant archers still have a bug. Due to their projectile starting off at an elevation and travels to the nearest body part of opponent which is the head. It misses a lot since head takes very low space. Its is better to target the foot as it presents a larger target to hit while walking.
Dravidian elephant archers despite their bonus have lower dps than scorpion. Scorpion does pass thorugh and has cheaper cost for Dravidians. Which unit would you use? There needs to be at least a couple of bonuses that stack on each other for elephants to work.

[SMUM15236]

@Apocalypso4826

You really want the Dravidians to be bad that much?

2. My design of Dravidians is awesome.

It will be something like this.

Asymmetric Militia line upgrade (like Hussar vs Winged Hussar) for civs with bad stable

I know I won’t be welcomed for this one as my proposal will not be any different from turning Militia into Eagle. Also the community is mostly conservative and not open for big changes. Tbh, I also lean toward that group. There is hardly any new mechanics that I liked. The list of bad stable civ is quite a lot. I’ll focus on mostly Bengalis, Dravidians and Malay here. You can add Burmese despite having a great stable because they are very weak to archer and still need a bonus/buff to solve that…

So you are not out of raiding option.

@benithisrael

For dravidians, light cav for raiding is not always feasible if there is TC fire.

Neither is Urumi.

[MadMax8915]

At their peak, the Dravidians encompassed southern India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and parts of Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia.

Honestly, it seems the developers decided, perhaps due to a lack of creativity or resources due to deadlines, to make the tusks… or perhaps out of prejudice, believing that the people from the south fought without any armor, and therefore must be weak…
Because it’s impossible for the Dravidians to be so trashy, if in real history they dominated and defeated countless different kingdoms and armies. Remember, the Khmer themselves asked the Dravidians for help in dealing with a particular problematic kingdom, the Malays.

Honestly, the Dravidians need a rework.
I hope the developers see this… and also improve the Dravidian stables, as they used cavalry and war elephants to dominate other civilizations and regions… and if they were as bad in the game as they were in real life, how did they win?

I haven’t played AoE2 in a while (in the future, maybe I’ll play again, if at least the Dravidians get a Rework), so I don’t know if the balance is still the same as in the two videos below. There’s probably been some change in the cost of some units, but most likely the unit stats are still the same:

Battle Elephants! 🐘 (AoE2)

Ranking the new Elephant Archer civs (AoE2)

Here in the videos, you can see that the battle elephants are complete TRASH! They shouldn’t be the WORST, they should at least be somewhere in the middle. I hope they fix it at some point.
Archer elephants are apparently good in the medieval age, but they start to deteriorate in the imperial age. T.T.

I repeat, the Dravidians weren’t a civilization that spent its existence solely on defense or without conquering anyone… they literally conquered, and how can they be so bad for a civilization that conquered so many different regions? It doesn’t make sense.

[benithisrael]

@MadMax8915

Honestly, the Dravidians need a rework.
I hope the developers see this… and also improve the Dravidian stables, as they used cavalry and war elephants to dominate other civilizations and regions… and if they were as bad in the game as they were in real life, how did they win?

I haven’t played AoE2 in a while (in the future, maybe I’ll play again, if at least the Dravidians get a Rework), so I don’t know if the balance is still the same as in the two videos below. There’s probably been some change in the cost of some units, but most likely the unit stats are still the same:

Well, lot of players who loved to play as Dravidians like @filtercoffee488, @GentleEvening5 and @UnwariestRobin3 kinda left the game completely because every fix done of Dravidians has been piss poor band-aids. The Devs will rework units like Hussite wagons and organ guns multitude of times. However they will make one change to Urumi after 3 years. Even the latest change which was meant to keep up their stats wrt to champions +1 attack buff and 0.96 speed did not touch Urumi cost. So most pathces done for DOI civs is half-hearted. Gujjaras helped sell DOI DLC well. But once new civs like Romans came, they got nerfed into oblivion.
If they are serious about making Dravidians a viable civ, they will start with this change

@benithisrael

200 wood per age + 33% siege wood discount + +5 dock pop space → “Receive 10 wood per villager trained except starting vills”

[JasuniSmith]

@MadMax8915

Honestly, it seems the developers decided, perhaps due to a lack of creativity or resources due to deadlines, to make the tusks… or perhaps out of prejudice, believing that the people from the south fought without any armor, and therefore must be weak…
Because it’s impossible for the Dravidians to be so trashy, if in real history they dominated and defeated countless different kingdoms and armies. Remember, the Khmer themselves asked the Dravidians for help in dealing with a particular problematic kingdom, the Malays.

Dravidians have full armor upgrades for infantry and archers. And Wootz steel gives them high offensive power (comparable to Aztec infantry). Dravidian infantry are easily top-tier, so they got a nice win rate spike when supplies was removed.

And while Dravidian overall performance is meh, their win rate isn’t so poor to put them in 1v1 F-tier. Arabia win rate is statistically above 45% for all ELOs, 1000-1200, 1200+, and 1900+ (seems like a C-tier performance to me, but definitely not F-tier). Arena and Megarandom seem to be around 50%. And Dravidian win rate is solidly good on the maps “Nomad” and “Four Lakes”.

With naval maps, the only map I’m seeing good data for (from AoEstats) is passage, where Dravidian win rate seems pretty good. But the play rate on passage is a bit lacking.

@MadMax8915

Archer elephants are apparently good in the medieval age, but they start to deteriorate in the imperial age. T.T.

I repeat, the Dravidians weren’t a civilization that spent its existence solely on defense or without conquering anyone… they literally conquered, and how can they be so bad for a civilization that conquered so many different regions? It doesn’t make sense.

Their elephant archers are top-tier. Bengalis might have been better on release, but Bengalis lost parthian tactics (so their elephant archers aren’t as good as they used to be) while Dravidian elephant archers are still much the same (and actually been buffed since SotL did a video on elephant archers).

From the looks of it, Dravidian influence was mainly on or near the shore, and their naval and hybrid win rates seem to reflect that fairly well.

[benithisrael]

Persians were the best hybrid map civ. Why did they get such a huge rework with buff to war elephants, a brand new unique tech in imp and another better palladin as an unique unit.

For Dravidians, More than the winrate, its is their playrate which is hugely bothersome. If people are not playing the civ as regularly as a mid-tier civ, then win-rate stats won’t reflect the true strength of the civ relative to others. Currently, Dravidians have the lowest pick-rate if you exclude the 3k civs.

The below image is spirit of the law grading the civs 6 years back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNTeraCvNhY

Except the outlier chinese, all the other bottom 3 civs have been buffed with considerable economy bonuses like no farm dropoffs, 100% faster economy tech research and koreans getting 50% cheaper wood archers. The civs had good defensive tanky units. But scored poorly on military too. Their grades were low primarily because they lacked units like palladin and had replacements like battle elephants and war wagons. I feel Dravidians would be below these civs if a similar grade video was done with Bengalis slightly above them due to Ratha.
Finally these civs became playable after they got an extremely good early economy bonus. Hence my suggestion for Dravidians

@benithisrael

200 wood per age + 33% siege wood discount + +5 dock pop space → “Receive 10 wood per villager trained except starting vills”
Team bonus - Ships and Siege repaired 25% faster

[MadMax8915]

Hmmm
In my case, I’d like to see some new upgrades for the elephants.
In this case, the Dravidian style seen in AoE2 focuses on the archer elephant… so I’d like to see at least one new upgrade for it:

Equestrian Archery - Archery range units move 10% faster

If this were to happen, as already suggested by the participants in this thread, I might be excited to get back into the game.
I just wish at least one elephant was useful… if it’s the archer elephant, then let it be him… even if he has less armor and less health, if he shoots faster and moves faster, it’s already worth something.

I still have a dream… but I’ll tell you next week, rsrsrs. I’ll get going. Thanks for your attention.

[SepiaLight97652]

You cannot add too many upgrades for one civ in AoE2 or else the assymetry will be inconsistent with other civs.

[benithisrael]

@SepiaLight97652

You cannot add too many upgrades for one civ in AoE2

Its not too many upgrades just to remove the band-aid patches and replace it with a proper design bonus.

@benithisrael

200 wood per age + 33% siege wood discount + +5 dock pop space → “Receive 10 wood per villager trained except starting vills”
Team bonus - Ships and Siege repaired 25% faster

Remove useless ‘Medical Corps’

@MadMax8915

Equestrian Archery - Archery range units move 10% faster

[SMUM15236]

@benithisrael

If they are serious about making Dravidians a viable civ, they will start with this change

They should start with regional upgrade variance of militia line like W.Hussar.

[SMUM15236]

Here are couple of my design ideas for Dravidians.

Option 1 (Existing Units)

Tech Tree

Husbandry is removed.
Redemption is added.

Civilization Bonus

“Siege Units cost 33% less wood” is removed.
New Civilization Bonus - Militia line +10% speed per age.

LS will have same speed as EW. Trading 1 PA, anti-monk and attack bonus vs siege for 5 HP, 1 MA and 2 ATK.
Champion will have 1.25 speed compared to 1.35 of EEW. Trading 2 PA, 0.1 speed, anti-monk and attack bonus vs siege for 10 HP, 1 MA and 1 ATK compared to Aztecs EEW. While costing less than half gold.

Option 2 (New Units)

Tech Tree

Husbandry is removed.
Redemption is added.
LS and THS+Champion are replaced by Tarwal Swordsman and Elite Tarwal Swordsman. (Along with Bengalis).

LS → Tarwal Swordsman
Upgrade Cost: 150f/65g → 150f/75g (Dravidians have 50% discount)
ATK: 9 → 8
Armor: 1/1 → 0/2
Speed: 0.96 → 1.05
Rest stats are same as LS.

THS+Champion → Elite Tarwal Swordsman
Upgrade Cost: 200f/100g + 600f/350g → 750f/350g (Dravidians have 50% discount)
ATK: 10
Armor: 1/1 → 0/2
Speed: 0.96 → 1.15
Rest stats are same as Champion.

Tarwal Swordsman will have same PA as EW. Trading 0.1 speed, anti-monk and attack bonus vs siege for 5 HP and 1 ATK. Elite Tarwal Swordsman trades 1 PA, 0.2 speed, anti-monk and attack bonus vs siege for 10 HP and 1 ATK compared to generic EEW. While costing less than half gold. Basically Malians with extra speed but a bit less ATK which is not a big deal as Dravidians have Wootz Steel.

Civilization Bonus

“Siege Units cost 33% less wood” is removed.
New Civilization Bonus - Battle Elephant cost 50% less gold.

[II.Selim]

@SMUM15236

Militia line +10% speed per age.

A faster militia line should remain exclusive to the Celts only. A good civ bonus should respect other civs’ bonuses first.

[SMUM15236]

Lithuanians spearman line.

20 characters

[bigbossbro08]

I like option 2 better. If not making it more regional to Indian civs. While we are it, I would prefer it being have more HP. Indian civs only have Elephant as high damage dealing unit. They lack hard hitting fast unit like Knight. Especially Bengalis where you have to rely on Ratha alone for mobility.

Also look at Legionnary of Romans. Got absurd stats for Barracks unit and still strong in gameplay. But they still there. It overshadowed Jaguar Warrior itself for some time. Jaguar Warrior itself basically changed role today due to existance of Roman Swordsman alone.

I have one critic tho. It makes Dravidians Stable even more useless to use.

[benithisrael]

@SMUM15236

Option 2 (New Units)

Tech Tree

Husbandry is removed.
Redemption is added.
LS and THS+Champion are replaced by Tarwal Swordsman and Elite Tarwal Swordsman. (Along with Bengalis).

LS → Tarwal Swordsman
Upgrade Cost: 150f/65g → 150f/75g (Dravidians have 50% discount)
ATK: 9 → 8
Armor: 1/1 → 0/2
Speed: 0.96 → 1.05
Rest stats are same as LS.

THS+Champion → Elite Tarwal Swordsman
Upgrade Cost: 200f/100g + 600f/350g → 750f/350g (Dravidians have 50% discount)
ATK: 10
Armor: 1/1 → 0/2
Speed: 0.96 → 1.15
Rest stats are same as Champion.

This is a great idea. I would love it if this became available next patch.

Just some clarifications please:

1. Melee armour 1 → 0 does not happen for any units in AOE2. Kinda goes against all currently existing mechanics.
2. What about the bonus damage of shock infantry and buildings
3. Are the civs getting Gambersons?

@bigbossbro08

Also look at Legionnary of Romans. Got absurd stats for Barracks unit and still strong in gameplay. But they still there. It overshadowed Jaguar Warrior itself for some time. Jaguar Warrior itself basically changed role today due to existance of Roman Swordsman alone.

Yup! the legionaries changed the way how the devs, pros and community viewed the swordsmen line.
In the future, if there is an expasion based on the ‘Deccan region‘ between Bengal and Tamil Nadu. The unit could be useful for kalingas, Kannadas and Telugus as well.

@SMUM15236

New Civilization Bonus - Battle Elephant cost 50% less gold.

The siege discout is pretty expansive as you said. It enables more farms than anything else. To remove the siege discount and a new bonus to go in, then this consolidation needs to occur.

@benithisrael

200 wood per age + 33% siege wood discount + +5 dock pop space → “Receive 10 wood per villager trained except starting vills”
Team bonus - Ships and Siege repaired 25% faster

@bigbossbro08

I have one critic tho. It makes Dravidians Stable even more useless to use.

Yup! but with a 50% gold discount however, You can mass them in late game once you have wootssteel and use them as champion substitute after the upgrade is removed. They kinda have the same attack and speed for dravidians without elite upgrade.

[SMUM15236]

@bigbossbro08

I would prefer it being have more HP.

Not possible to balance imo. They cost only 20 gold and trained from barracks at 21 seconds.

@bigbossbro08

Especially Bengalis where you have to rely on Ratha alone for mobility.

They don’t have final infantry armor anyway.

@bigbossbro08

Also look at Legionnary of Romans. Got absurd stats for Barracks unit and still strong in gameplay. But they still there. It overshadowed Jaguar Warrior itself for some time. Jaguar Warrior itself basically changed role today due to existance of Roman Swordsman alone.

I don’t think so. Other infantry UU were simply better. Legionary base stat is not that powerful. 5 HP and 4 attack vs infantry for 2 less attack. It is Romans UT that makes them so strong.

@bigbossbro08

I have one critic tho. It makes Dravidians Stable even more useless to use.

That’s their design.

@benithisrael

Melee armour 1 → 0 does not happen for any units in AOE2. Kinda goes against all currently existing mechanics.

You are confused. Tarwal Swordsman is not an upgrade of LS. It is an alternative upgrade like Savar. As if you are saying 160 HP → 145 HP never happens. MAA has 0 MA, not 1.

@benithisrael

What about the bonus damage of shock infantry and buildings

Should be same as generic LS/THS/Champion, if not more as they have a bit less attack. I will say not against building as they have more HP and speed.

@benithisrael

Are the civs getting Gambersons?

Yeah, absolutely. Having same PA as Eagle/Malians is a must.