just a simple one - make it 1 pop
its a shit unit, always has been but if it only has 1 pop then its comparable the cossack, cost even more as well.
in the early game it would arguably still be very hard to mass and therefore not much would change but as the game progress and you are able to swarm with them they could arguably become very powerful
Somehow I had completely forgotten they had 2 pop. Always thought they were 1 cuz they are basically just speedy Cossacks on Camels lol.
the issue i see is that russia has really poor 1 pop infantry in age 2, so the combined power levels of like, 30 pop of strelets, ruskets and cossacks is pretty similar to 30 pop of crossbows, muskets and hussars.
india is pretty different, gurkha outclass a large majority of age 2 ranged infantry and sepoy outclass most muskets.
(please note that updates to sepoy recently have shifted power levels, i am aware of this, but im talking about the design of india initially)
because sowars are kinda trash except in specific circumstances, it meant that the same 30 pop of all 3 units had similar power levels to other civs equivalents. 1 pop sowars would skew this Heavily in favour of india by population.
The only civ i know that can truly claim the most population effective of those 3 unit types age 2 is Hausa but they also cant mass maigadi.
i understand the concern about power levels but when i think about the situation that cavs normally play in like age 2 play i think pop efficiency is kinda more meaningful.
i dont think its a coincidence that most the civs that has 1 pop cav - the two of them have trouble in the current meta as in order to fully take advantage of their 1 pop cav requires a very drawn out situation, like how russia and india used to play on thar dessert. the meta now is very defensive and boomy, meaning that these units still face challanges in actually getting the mass they need. china’s own 1 pop cav is not really the focus of 1v1 play for the same reason i reckon.
i would still keep their cost as it is, making them exceptionally expensive, more then a cossack, to make massing a good number of them difficult. i would also still be the 3rd best 1 pop cav, only beating the steppe rider
if we ever go back to that drawn out age 2 meta, i think you can nerf them by just reducing the stats to be more like a steppe rider.
what all 1 pop heavy cav do we got right now?
coyote runners
steppe
shotel
raiders
cossacks
chimu
I’d argue sowars are better unit by unit than any of these besides cossacks. Its not that sowars are worth 2 pop but they’re also not bad enough to be 1 pop, even without considering their accompanying age 2 units. They’re like uhlans, kind of teetering on 1.5 population. I dont see the unit as a problem in its current state, but india does desperately need access to cuirass or something
I think you nailed it when you spoke of how india, with an incredible array of choices in age2 and beyond, does not need a spammable 1 pop hand cav unit to compliment the zambrak and their beefy infantry. Indias meh sowar is for specific use (raiding, anti skirm or niche infantry like flamethrowers/minutes etc). Buffing this breaks what little things india doesnt counter (its popular tournament civ because india has almost 0 bad matchups and even those are very playable) and would allow india spammable 7 speed lancer cav that scales even harder with its 2 cards. Thats just going to break a civ with arguably the best age2 in the game.
You’d have to look at things like otto azap/ deli, zambracks, sepoy, ghurka etc to make room for this. Basically redesign the entire civ. Theres a reason steppes have to be trained in banner, raiders have poor scaling and need card /influence to be paired with musk, and shock inf are slower and need 2x to equivilent or more a hussar. 1 pop sowar should be locked to age4+ if at all, barring a major redesign.
I wonder what if it gets an anti-cavalry multiplier like traditional camel units…
meh. Indians have too many units for killing cavalry.
Unless Zamburaks become mobile Abus Guns?
Maybe, if the card of attack also gives them an 30% of HP would be enough. Literally, Sowars would get about 60 hp, they are still weak.
i would argue for sowars are kinda behind raiders a bit though that might just be personal bias on my part since you do get a bit more attack, siege and splash for later.
maybe to take the uhlan route - a unit that I agree is kinda 1.5 pop-ish , you do need to a lot of upgrades on that for it to be decent, uhlans have like 45% stats from cards + 10% stats from royal guard + 10% hp from cuirass. its almost the same level of upgrade as dynasty reform of china
sowars get +15% stats from 2 cards, +30% attack from camel attack and +7% hp from consulate. this feels like a much bigger gap to bridge and i dont like stacking up too many cards for civs (there is also the mansabdar but i feel unless you rework the mansabdar system its too ineffcient to use - i kinda want to rework it into like the atlantean hero system but that is for another time)
maybe another route is to give it the chinaco treatment and give it an extra multi against infantry but not a larger negative multi against heavy so that its just a little more rounded against infantry.
like I’d mentioned above, india needs access to cuirass or something else that isn’t just more home city cards. The sad fact is that lategame flail elephants are a better cavalry unit per pop in every way than sowars. It feels like sowars are intended to be completely outclassed by age 4, and without some sort of drastic hp adjustment for the lategame they will always be subpar
Maybe a greater bonus?? Like Spanish lancers at age 4/5. Also it could help moving desert terror to monastery or as a tech in the stable idk.
we could add techs to the tower of victory the same way that the japan has for the Golden Pavilion
though i am a bit wary of locking it behind age up for asian civs considering you cant get them all
I don’t like standardizing civs to match other wonders or things like that. That being said, the giant tower is absolutely worthless 99% of the time so maybe its not a bad idea.
Make howdah 18 range by giving india caracole, im sure that will be fine 
we dont need to give them all arsenal techs, japan doesnt get ranged cavalry caracole either as much as 20 range yabusame would be amazing
i am slighly more fearful of giving mahouts 10% more hp- another 90 hp lol
we could just make it camel exclusive techs like how the monastery tech now gives ele a random attack boost