And thats why I told you ELITE:
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Good observation. There is also whirled-up dust at their feet. So they could be pikemen with faster speed (and perhaps better armor).
I also thought about a charge mechanic (without bonus damage on hit), automatically accelerating for the last few meters (like zealots in SC 2), but that’s not possible as the ones around the trebuchets also seem to be running
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We could suppose between a mix of a huskarl (because of the shield) and a pikeman ? Interesting !
Anyway it’s good to see a UU pikeman imo !
My guess: A beefier, faster spearman.
The spear, shield and his head are at a different angle.
I wouldn’t say it’s “modelled” on the eagle warrior just because it has a spear and shield
I kind of want to play Gurjaras with a berber ally, +50% bonus damage on camels with extra melee armor and on genitours.
The only thing that can stop me are the dreaded Goths!
(And Celts, and everyone with an Italian ally, and…)
Could be fun: a pierce armor buff during the charge to counter archers and skirmishers 
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I only hope the pikeman UU won’t be better than Kamayuk.
I believe in my Inca supremacy 
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I don’t think they would be cheap but faster, no special ability but with some bonus damage probably; IMO they are the UU of the Gurjaras (if the tech tree leak is true)
Light to medium cavalry, it could be a replacement of Knight line; don’t think an attack bonus against villagers, vills don’t have any special armor so it would be weird to be implemented now
Agree here, UU Infantry with bonus against cavalry and fast
Not sure about this, but it would have a gimmick attack
I need to have more info about this, the description is something new
What about the Ram Elephant???
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So how about an unique indian tower in addition of the fast armored pikeman ?
I think the Ratha is going to have a ranged and melee attack because of its description: “cavalry archer/cavalry”, the “/” is generally used to divide functions and I remembered that in AoE 1 there are both melee and ranged chariots, I thought that it was logical to join those two battle chariot units.
About the Ram Elephant, my first impression was that it was going to be a campaign unit like the battle chariot shown in the AOE2 trailer: DE
However, seeing in image 2 of these ram elephants, I thought about the possibility that the Indians were going to have a different evolution of their Battle Elephant with respect to the civilizations of Southeast Asia:
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Southeast Asian Civilizations: Battle Elephant —> Elite Battle Elephant
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Indian Civilizations: Battle Elephant —> Ram Elephant
The idea is interesting to me, to have a similar unit in the age of the Castles but different in the Imperial Age (case similar to that of the Winged Hussars)
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Seems like we will again not get an archer civ. Since DE came out we only got 1 archer civ in the bohemians. It makes actually kinda disbalance, when regarding team games when you want to have 2 archer civs as flanks you have not that much good choices as the pockets have.
And for the Ratha I actually predict a ranged pierce and a melee attack. The ranged pierce maybe in the range of a xbow/arb (maximum 2 more) and then some melee attack with a bonus vs infantry. Also considerably high speed like cav archers or even slightly faster.
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Precolumbian and Central African civs would assuredly not have Cav UUs (with the exception of Mapuche) due to the Malaria Belt as well as the lack of horses in Preconquest America.
Maybe they’re saving them up for the next expansion pack 
Having not seen the tech tree, the leaked dravidians civ bonuses look good for an archer civ. At least for an antiarcher one
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I like that skirm + ea bonus actually. Both units suffer from their really slow damage output. And it also synergizes well with their infantry fokus. But I don’t think they can be considered an archer civ just because of that bonus.
TBH I like all the three new civ designs. The Gurajas seem to be a civ with a unique buildorder and very flexible tech tree around their stable options. Plus the UU can be a really nice backline potentially, if it has comparable speed like a gbeto. The dravidians seem to be specialised in infantry + skirms or EA, depending on the situation. The bengalis seem designed on the choice between two main strats in the midgame: Eles or Rathas. Eles for more closed maps and Rathas for open ones. But who says they can’t mix it up? I also think Rathas will try battle for tech advantage because of their town center bonus, they want to get up quicker to get the extra vills.
All 3 civ designs I actually like a lot, as far as I can tell yet with the limited information. But just wanted to mention that the - again - lack of archer civs since DE came out is kinda obvious to me.
It’s a lot of cavalry focus and also eco bonusses for booming (besides the new indian civs eco bonusses are actually less boom specific).
(Besides that none of the civs looks like totally OP, only the bengalis could have a really strong ele rush in low to mid elo - seems like Devs have figured it out. (Only bonus that can be problematic in high elo seems to be the ship hp regen, but needs to be tested))
Dont forget their other bonuses. With their MAA discount and extra free wood, they can do a nice MAA into archers opening.
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I think they might do the same thing with Dravidian that they did with Bulgarians and let them have all these great bonuses but no xbows so that they don’t go m@a xbow every game. Also free wood + better fishing ship + dock that gives pop = new cool kid on Nomad. They might lack galleys, like Koreans and Vikings lack each a ship line entirely. Anyway it was about time we got a new ship UU, especially since most DE civs are more useless than each other on water.
For Gurjaras I just can’t agree with the star wars bonus, I mean it’s just an overused fan idea at this point 11 At least they found a way to make it relevant rather than the SP only bonus it would have been if it had forced the players to just not eat sheeps without immediate compensation. And hey, first UT made my idea of a high melee armour archer unit come true.
And sorry Bengalis, but you still look like you came straight out of a Krakenmeister mod. I guess it was bound to happen with all the bonuses available. I also still can’t make sense of the “cavalry/cavalry archer” category of the ratha. Surely even if it’s a unit with both ranged and melee attack, “cavalry archer” already encompasses the cavalry aspect? Also beside the aftertaste of First crusade of their vill bonus, it’s kinda like the Viking bonus in that it puts you ahead economically by quite a lot, but it’s probably more flexible in some way (you can choose where to put those vills while wheelbarrow mostly buffs farmers) and it’s on a civ with super eles rather than bottom tier kts.
Since it turns out the new Indians’ description is overwritten by a mod, and that I also got jebaited into believing it’s a fake because the tradition of one new unique building each expension has been broken, let’s speculate that they will receive a unique building because why not.
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It’s good, but nothing exceptional. Bulgarians, lith and japanese eg have even stronger maa/archer openers imo.
It’s actually really useful for a fc build cause you then almost only need to focus on getting food and gold for the aging up whilst the wood bonus helps to make the necessary buildings and extra tcs. Idk how good it is on water maps actually. Whilst a wood bonus should be strong, it being hidden behind an age-up is bad for water maps as the water boom really delays your uptime.
Shouldn’t they tie with Japanese at least? 200 free wood is like saving 50 wood on 1 mill, mining camp and 2 lumber camps, and the discount on the m@a upgrade lets them add one more, so that’s effectively +33% damage and health. And if they get xbow they are automatically better than Bulgarian, and their skirm bonus is better than the Lith one when it comes to fight the obvious archer response.
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Difference is that Dradivian economy is better on early castle and they have very damn good skirms
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