The problem of Indians huge difference in TGs and 1v1 is much talked about.
I have observed this happens due to the excess bulk of the Indian camels to ranged hits (and their near nilpotent attack vs Infantry in 1v1s), especially them taking 5-6 more Crossbow shots and 20 more Skirm shots to kill, Xbow being the mandatory unit for TG flanks. In TGs you fight both Knights and Crossbows at the same time, whereas in 1v1s you fight only one of Crossbows or Knights.
Thus if we reduce the bulk and increase base attack of Indian camels, it lowers their versatility to fight archers in TGs while increasing their offensive raiding potential as well as ability to deal with Infantry for 1v1s.
Proposed solution: Change the Camel +1 PA to +3 attack for Camels.
And Camels still remain Knight substitutes, even with 0 PA. They turn into an offensive unit with some actual raiding potential.
But still with 0 base PA, thus not getting any bulk.
And you NEVER have to remove Plate Barding Armor. Or give them FU Arbalests.
Or do anything crazy.
These Camels kill both foot and horse units in 1 less hit basically. Instead of taking like 10 more hits to kill from a distance.
Now with this change Indians have a fighting chance vs Infantry civilizations, especially a much needed one vs Aztecs/Incas/Mayans in 1v1s
This could be a good idea, but I would wait for the balance patch before suggesting new balance changes, specially if they are related with the leaked ones…
How is that helping, though? Extra pierce armor is their most essential 1v1 military feature. If you replace that by extra attack you make them even worse against xbows and thus Indians becomes a worse 1v1 civ because xbows is what Indians are mostly facing in castle age.
Your change would make Indians even worse than they are against any archer civ, including Mayans and Aztecs, strange that you mention these two… On the contrary it would make them unnecessarily strong against cavalry civs that don’t have good archers like Franks or Lithuanians.
Camels are not meant to be general-purpose. When you buff camels, you think you increase variety, but instead what happens is that you make the game luck-based (imo). I’d rather see Indians buffed somewhere else.
Sort of unrelated, I wish someone could introduce a mod that works like Starcraft II LotV unit tester (https://www.sc2mapster.com/projects/unit-tester)
That way, people can easily mess around with units based on current balance, build armies with various composition and see how it goes.
This is more a buff than a nerf. Imperial Camel are already very tanky with 160 HP and don’t forget they are way cheaper than Knights or Paladins. They would die faster against Archer but NOT against Melee units. This is also a buff for teamgames. Not a good decision at all.
Yeah, I know that. But the SC2 ones give the player ability to control the unit on the fly, add buildings, enable/disable upgrades etc. I feel that one is more versatile than just simple webpage simulator.
Indians in 1v1s. WE NEED A BUFF to Indian Camels, to make them the best camels, that is part of the Indian civ identity in AOE2.
Hera in his breakdown video completely opposed all these changes to the Indians, and said Indians were completely balanced according to him.
Even Viper, who admitted they were a menace in TGs, in his breakdown video, said he believes Indians need to be buffed now or they will have a really hard time.
Imperial Camels seems like trash. They are just same as vs Paladin in Malians, Saracens camel with high upgrade cost. Malian Farimba camels can be better vs other than Cavarly due to the 1 more attack and 1 more melee armor.
What reason left we pick indians in 1v1? Only thing they Fully upgraded is HCA, Elite Skirms and HC. None of them are best unit to use. Turks have bonus and UT in both HC and HCA. Indians have just generic HCA and only minor UT +1 range for HC.