Redundant Unique Units

I believe Hand Cannoneers have 75% accuracy, Janissaries have 50%, and Elite Janissaries have 65%. Now that is at their max range (7 or 8), so I’m not sure if Janissaries are more accurate than Hand Cannoneers at a range of 7 or below. In general I’d prefer units to walk 1 tile and hit their target than to stay far and miss, that’s why Indian Hand Cannoneers have problems.

That’s a good point about Mangonels in Castle Age. Just becomes risky again in Imperial with most Onagers having a range of 9 after Siege Engineers, and Elite Janissaries stay at 8. Similar story for Elite Skirmishers, Janissaries outrange them in Castle Age with 8 vs 7, but in Imperial both become 8. Outranging your counter and having enough damage to kill it quickly is very useful.

This leads me to another question that maybe someone here can answer. Do Condottieri counter Janissaries? They resist the HC bonus damage, but Janissaries don’t deal bonus damage to infantry so maybe they take full damage?

Oh I probably have bad memory on their accuracies.

I think Janissaries are used most often in Arena game, their Castle age push is really deadly (similar to Conquistador - both fall off at Imp, but Janissaries more so). I dont think they are a niche unit, at least on castle age it is a nightmare to be countered with.

I disagree with the Berber statement, The Peoples of the dessert in north Africa did make use of javalin throwing light cav. And the genitour is an Allied shared unit, thus its focus is on aiding your allies to counter Cav archers as well. The fact that Spain used Genitours as well is perfectly displayed in game ,since the Berbers and Spain / Italy/ Byzantines fought against one another as well as together as allies, once allied with the berbers as Spain,Portugal or Byzantines you then do get access to the Genirtour wich is perfect.

I 100% agree with you on the Vietnamese. Their ratan Archers do soffuce for anti archer/infantry. I Would much rather give Imperial Skirm to an African civ, preferebly A new African civ included in a new African DLC.

I disgaree wiht your Turks statement as well. Their Janissaries are good and their uniqe tech back this up. Not every civ needs strong Skirms, veriety is good, Turks are a gold intensive civ thus you have tio get as much gold from the get go as possible, in order to create the gunpowder units as well as cav to counter archers.

Once more The Turks and Berbers were good allies and when having them as allies in game you can use the Berber Genitour to aid the Turks in the skirm field that they are ‘‘lacking’’. It just takes a bit of a broader mentality to see how the civs are desighned to aid one another.

Yeah, an African civ getting Imperial Skirmishers could be cool. In order to help fund their Rattan Archers in post imp 1v1, I’ve seen the suggestion a few times that Paper Money could bring a trickle of gold from chopping wood (similar to Poles getting gold from stone, or Burgundians getting gold from farms).

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That would be superb sir.

who needs more then 22 ranged attack against infantry meh. Elite Jans kills easyly Halbs,Champs,Samurais,Eagles pretty much all infantry .Generally HC or Janny doesnt make quite difference as for killing Infantry.Only thing Jannies need is more HP or +1 PA maybe. Or just decreasing Elite Upgrade cost would be fine.

That’s assuming they hit. Damage doesn’t matter if they miss, and Janissary accuracy did not receive the same buff as HC in patch 50292. Elite Janissaries also used to have more HP than Hand Cannoneers, but this was equalized in patch 51737.

Damage to infantry ends up at 24 against fully upgraded Halberdiers and 22 against Champions, while Elite Janissary does 18 and 17 to these same units. This means both infantry units die 1 shot sooner from HC fire.

also, +1 vs Spearman bonus along with +10 vs infantry is something very useful for Turkish HC since Turks are weak against halberdiers late game.

Long story short, it seems we all agree with the effectiveness of Janissaries in the castle age but the expensive elite upgrade for Janissaries and less accuracy with longer range doesn’t really make the difference in the imperial age. Elite Janissaries might benefit the 75% accuracy like HCs. I am not sure if a +5 HP increase would make them OP as Elite Janissaries tho if they were got the same treatment as HC got.

Agree with your point about elite Janissaries, but that’s subject to another thread
I assume that the Redundant UU is on purpose by the devs since the AoK, to give the player the decision to choose one or the other depending on how the game goes
The game is being designed this way from the beginning, not sure if the same line has been followed with the latest DLC

I hardly ever use War Elephants as Persians. Or Shotel Warriors as Ethiopians for that matter.

War Elephants are rarely needed as Persians, but at least they’re different than other Persian units. If War Elephants were the unique unit from Khmer castles then I’d have a problem with it, given that they already have good battle elephants at the stable.

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I agree with pretty much everything you say!
Having these units available could be key for certain civs, the Genitour and Imp. Skirmisher could be a great way of covering a civ’s weakness. However, the civilizations that own these techs already have another -better- way of doing what these units do. Therefore, these potential units end up being overshadowed by other options.

I would really like to see Genitours on spanish as you mention (maybe even take away Elite Skirm. upgrade in this case), and I’m pretty sure we could find a better spot for Imp. Skirm too (Indians maybe?).

However, when talking about Janiss I think that while they are similar to the basic HC, their “playability” is different and deserves its spot.

Great post!

Persians have the full-upgraded paladins already. Their paladins replace the war elephants to paly the most efficient role among heavy cavalry units.

In my opinion, if the war elephants were the unit of the south and southeast Asian civs, they may still have a good role even if Indians get the cavaliers and elite battle elephants due to the historical accuracy. The war elephants would be the best of their heavy melee cavalry units and the players could use them for stronger power by taking more cost.

I’m surprised nobody discuss the missionaries and flaming camels in this thread.

The missionaries may be able to collect the relic. While they are holding a relic, their basic moving speed should be as slow as the regular monks.

The flaming camels may be trainable without needing the unit tech, getting cheaper and even being the castle age units.

Why would a Unique Unit cover its civ weaknesses? Is it some sort of a utopian idealist thought?

Civs should have holes in their tech tree, civs should have weaknesses, and above all, artistically the whole beauty about civ design is a healthy portion of lack of harmony.

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I agree, making changes for the sole sake of covering a “hole” in a civ’s toolkit alone is not necessarily justified. For instance, the Teutons have a known weakness against CA/Ranged units in general, but that doesn’t mean I would personally ever be in favour of giving them Imperial skirmishers or Genitours.

I think the author of this post proposed that balancing idea as an option, but the main topic of the post is rather to expose how these UU overlap with other options within the same civ, and therefore see barely no play at all. If they were in another civ (in which overlapping is not a thing, but does not necessarily fix a hole within the civ) they could have a much more justified existance, and see a bit more play.

I think Indians would be a good example for this matter. Genitours and Imperial skirms in particular would fit nicely within the civ in my opinion, but it’s not like they have weak skirms right now (They have full upgrades available). In this particular case, neither UU would cover any hole/flaw within the Indian toolkit, but would still be useful to have.

Obviously one could make a case for historical accuaracy, which I know nothing about myself. This is intented to be balance focused.

Yes, well said. I’m not proposing filling every civ’s weakness, just pointing out a few examples that don’t seem to really add anything to the civ. There are certainly some great combinations around that cover each other’s weakness (Frank Paladins and Throwing Axemen, Mayan Eagles and Archers, etc.). I also think that unique techs can cover a civ’s weaknesses, like Persian trash bows to protect their Elephants or Paladins from mass spears, and costing wood is great when your main unit is expensive in gold and food. Another example would be Lithuanian Elite Skirms, with Tower Shields and more speed, which take care of both Archers and Halberdiers and protect the Leitis. I also believe there’s nothing wrong with civs having a weakness if they have other areas of strength, like the Teutons example where they are countered well by CA, but they do well against any melee infantry or cavalry civs, and have a good economy.

This discussion is more about situations where there’s no reason to invest in two unique units within one civ, because they effectively do the same thing, and add almost nothing to the strength or versatility of the civ. I guess it’s a fine line, and many seem to think Janissaries don’t belong on this list. There’s certainly some opinion involved.

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Could you please tell me the different role of Janissaries than Turkish HC? I dont see a single reason to produce Janissaries in Imperial Age.

I mostly agree with you still, but the answers I’ve received are that Elite Jans are more versatile since they do 22 damage to siege, cavalry, etc. and they have 1 additional range.

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Your games must be excrusiatingly boring then.

Hmm I think most of your examples are for civs that have two unique units, perhaps even where one is a team bonus. So I don’t think it’s a problem for that unit to have redundancy and be only useful for specific situations or for team mates.