Remove Siege Elephants and add Bombard cannons

Age of Empires III: DE III - Discussion
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We have Great Bombards and we have Li’l Bombards, but what is absent is just a plain old Bombard.

Bombards

A regular bombard should be added to fill the role of falconet for the factions known as the “Gunpowder Empires”. These empires were the Ottomans, Mughals (Indians), and Safavid Persians. They all used cannons extensively yet the Great Bombard is the only Middle Eastern Cannon represented in the game.

Its function should be roughly equivalent to a falconet to avoid any issues with it replacing falconets for Ottomans. For example, it could have a slower rate of fire, but higher base attack, higher health, and more splash damage to compensate.

It could be styled something like the Mughal artillery pictured below (but also be generic enough for all Middle Eastern and possibly even some African or Asian civs).

Ottomans

Bombards would replace Falconets in their unit roster. If the two units are sufficiently different, the Ottomans could retain cards such as the 2 Falconets in age 3 and infinite 2 Falconets in age 4 to keep gameplay largely unchanged.

Indians

Despite being based on the Mughals, the Indians have zero actual artillery. Bombard cannons would provide this for them and give them an actual Falconet equivalent which could be trained from castles.

Replace the Siege Elephant
With an actual cannon in their roster, the Siege Elephant could be removed from the game. The unit is fictional and impossible (only small swivel guns were ever mounted on elephants and full-sized cannons would hurt and frighten them). On top of that, they’re not even a good unit when it comes to gameplay and the model for the unit isn’t even done right since the cannon is just floating in the air and not even being held properly.

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Since Siege Elephants are India’s Culverin equivalent, that role could be shited onto the Howdah. This could be achieved by either a huge multiplier (like Yabusame) or by making them deal siege damage with a more moderate multiplier. The Culverin function could also be better telegraphed by giving Howdahs a swivel gun instead of a rifle. Howdahs could retain some of their anti-cavalry role, but that is also covered by Zamburaks so India wouldn’t be lacking if that was also reduced.

The long-range building damage role of Siege Elephants could be filled by the new Bombard unit. Its base damage could be similar to a Falconet but a unique upgrade like Mughal Artillery or tech from the Ottoman consulate could give it a bigger multiplier against buildings and possibly more range. Flail Elephants would also be available for up-close damage.

Persians

If a Persian civilization is ever added, units like Bombards and Zamburaks would be a must for their unit roster.

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Shifting Howdahs into the Culverin role could also eliminate the need for the clunky European Cannons tech for Ethiopians (and probably Hausa too). They could be given Bombards by default and then unlock a Culverin option by allying with Indians for Howdahs or Europeans for actual Culverins. If Bombards are a default unit, they could cost a mix of wood and influence rather than just pure influence.

Having Culverins enabled by the Italian Firearms card could also be an option to guarantee access.

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I am not as opposed to adding a slow high pop cannon but please do not change the Siege elephant and Howdas.

What game type is this being asked for? In Sup it is not needed really, And TR balance changes should be made to enhance India’s melee game play and not turn it into another cannon, skirm goon civ, there are plenty of those.

Howdas are already decent at sniping cannons and much better for anti cav purposes than Zamburaks. Which I never make Zams as they as so weak and short ranged.

I found this image while looking for evidence that the unit is not totally fiction. and its not. (though the game is a little oversized) A gun like this will punch holes in buildings or disable artillery. Being so fast on the swivel really should make it even more useful for sniping targets. Since field cannon accuracy is meant more of a shock and awe approach and collateral shrapnel damage.

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Siege elephants are fine.

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Your picture is exactly what I already mentioned.

I gave multiple options for how to fold the role into Howdahs and retaining their anti-cav was one option. Giving them a bigger anti-artilley multiplier to make them like mega Yabusame would be fine and could let them retain their anti-cav function.

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Asians get the “regular” artillery from their consulate. So they only have those odd exotic units that were not really used a lot in real life in their castle.
That’s indeed very weird but they do have a way to obtain the common sense “regular” artillery.

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Export doesnt count in any serious treaty match, it will run out at some point.
I would give them more AoE and disable to attack no-artillery units, also remove the range cav tag.

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True they can get foreign artillery in a very limited capacity. But how much sense does it make for a faction that was one of the “gunpowder empires” to have zero domestic options for cannons? Especially when factions like the Iroquois (who probably never manufactured cannons) have their own unique artillery unit.

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the point is the swivel gun is what the picture of the Siege elephant is meant to be, its just a little over sized, I think it looks different fro DE too, but I am not sure about that. And that is how it works as a anti artillery cannon and not a big anti infantry cannon.

There is just no need to make howdas any stronger. or to make this change

The proper fix would be to allow training of single cannons out of the consulate instead of spending export on hussar or gendarmes that comes with them. People complain its not enough but how many of them ever switch it to 60% more gather rate for export to ship more cannon? I do not think India should have access to cannons like that anyway, and I am an Indian player. To keep the civ specific to its type being a strong infantry and melee civ. It has good but not OP anti artillery abilities, what it really needs to operate at full strength are better access to Urumi. Either allowing the shipment to come in half the time or a tech that allows them to be trainable in the imperial age.

They synergize with mahouts really well making a super strong aggressive melee wall and that kind of civ diversity is what needs to be cultivated rather than just turning every TR civ into a skrim good cannon civ.

Do you use urumi? They are awesome, and worth the card time.

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They’re fine… but not very realistic.

Elephants get spooked by cannonfire. Particularly if one is on its own back.

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Siege elephants are also the mortar equivalent and a little swivel gun is going to do zilch versus a fortress. Nothing that could breach walls could safely fit on an elephant’s back, therefore the unit is fictional. It’s not strictly required but it would be a huge improvement to not have fictional units. And Siege Elephants with their crappy targeting aren’t even a good unit gameplay wise.

Swivel guns of the size you pictured is what is used by a Zamburak which is anti-cav. Howdahs are already slightly anti-artilley and the Yabusame is precedent for expanding the role of an anti-cav unit to also be anti-artilley. Model Howdahs with a swivel gun and give them anti-artilley and anti-ship bonuses and then you’re covered for a Culverin unit. Add in a Falconet equivalent with decent siege capabilities and you’re also covered for anti-building and anti-infantry. You wouldn’t need to rely so much on Urumi anyway if you had a Falconet equivalent. Urumi are fantastic but it would make India too OP if they could get them easily. India really just needs a training time reduction for the very late game.

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I do think that gun/ platform is a bit bigger than a camel would handle. But if you want to get realistic about what kinds of damages can be done then you will need to petition to remove the torch ability for any stone building, and streamline the amount of siege damage all torches do.
This is a GAME, none of the cannons really operate like real ones. An air burst 13" mortar shot has a blast radius of shrapnel 60 meters! a few of those would obliterate armies if under them, but in the game mortars (generally) can not even attack units. The blast of a falconet, as anther example, could be deadly just being 40 ft in front of the cannon and not even being hit by the projectile. They would also use canister shots and bounce them off the ground taking out the knees of huge groups of men. Cannons are far more dangerous in real life than the game makes them out to be. They did a good job on balancing them though.

For a Siege ele a 3cm shot, is big enough to poke holes through most thin walled buildings (many parts of fortresses made of wood) and turn the debris into shrapnel, or take out artillery pieces.

I do not get why you do not like Siege eles but then want to give a swivel gun to Howdas effectively turning them into a siege ele. All you are really doing is making an argument to remove the Howda.

How can you make arguments about historical accuracy and have Yabasumi with rediclious strength vs artillery at all? By that argument all arrows should equally cause the same damage to any target.

Urumi are not OP being that they come from a shipment (and also get countered hard by cav and artillery and are expensive high pop units). so they cannot really be massed. but if that shipment were to arrive faster they would be much more playable, and give the AOE damage that India needs to combat large armies in TR scenes. That would keep the civ true to itself and people would not notice the lack of cannons. It would then be a really unique civ for TR rather than being a carbon copy of a Euro civ.

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This would just be visual to telegraph having enhanced anti-artilley capabilities. I don’t want to remove Howdahs, just give them a bigger anti-artilley multiplier so that Siege Elephants can be removed. Right now India has 2 similar anti-cav units and 2 elephant guys with a big gun. It would be an improvement to differentiate the anti-cav units more and consolidate the ranged elephant unit by removing the one that is fictional.

The civ is the Mughals! They probably had more cannons than any other empire on earth at the time. But for some reason we gotta lean into the stereotypes and give them elephants instead of cannons.

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The Indian Howdah is already a perfectly working unit. It should not be changed in my opinion.

Maybe the role of the Siege Elephant can be changed to work more like a Culverin instead of being an anti building weapon.

Two changes:
Siege Elephant looses the Artillery tag making it a lot more resistant against Culverins and some other units but still easily countered by Skirmishers.
But they also lose their modifier against buildings.
This way they become a counter artillery like the Culverin with the bonus to be good against ships.
This way they might be OP so maybe their range should be reduced a bit because now they are not vulnerable to Culverins anymore.

The new Bombard unit:
Cost: 500 coin 100 wood (like Horse Artillery)
HP: 200 HP (like Falconet or Horse Artillery) also 75% range resist.
Attack: 150
Rate of Fire: 5
Their DPS would be slightly lower that Horse Artillery but with a higher alpha damage.
Modifiers same as Falconet and Horse Artillery but maybe 3-4x against building instead of 2x
Speed is also the same as Falconet.

The Ottomans also have access to this unit but they can still get Falconets from the Home City. (Maybe some new or changed cards that send bombards)
So no 2 Bombards shipment in Age 3 unless it costs some Coin.

And of course the Persians too. I really hope they will get added.

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Howdas and zamburaks may be both anti cav, but for TR purposes one should not be making Zams, first because it takes 2 cards that are hard to make room for, and Zams require good micro to make use of their speed and short range. Putting them on the front line as a relatively coin heavy unit is not efficient. Howdas tank better and are more versatile for anti artillery, and even have a strong melee attack. Howdas are totally fine and if made to counter artillery better would have to reduce its cav damage, and what would the point of that be?

I am not super proficient in the actual history but it seems to be an amalgamation of Indian tribes, and Rajputs fought against them, and Urumi swordsmen were used by Marathas to also fight them (Mughals). If we are going totally history based then there is no reason for certain types of musket units to have more HP and the attacks would be relatively the same too. I mean true to how the civ is played and designed in the game. Which is meant to be a predominately melee civ. Which if properly used Mahouts kill Skirms faster than cannons will so with some urumi back up to mahouts and even some tigers in the mix creates a melee death ball that is unique game play to the civ that should be appreciated and enhanced rather than turning India into the same boring skirm (Gurka) dragoon (Howda) cannon mass as other civs, that it will not even do as good with since India has slower train times. That route just goes to take all the uniqueness out of the civ. If by making the Howda dual purpose unit as culverin and Anti cav, then adding in cannons to that, really buff the civ considerably as they won’t need the pop for culverins, and could basically just go heavy on cannon and howda, how would you counter that? Howdas kill culverins and cav (counters to artillery) and artillery counter inf… counters to howdas… its balancing like that which cheapens the civ to a two unit spam. That would be a sad sad day.

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I like the idea to experiment removing the artillery tag and keeping the cav tag, reducing range, but I think its anti building capabilities are fine, maybe reduced a little but its a fine unit. (problem with reducing range though is they already struggle to counter ships with range upgrades)

one way to balance the civ I am just pondering is this… From my understanding recent buffs to the flail elephant has made the mahout Obsolete as flails give better DMG cap and are just more efficient use of res than mahouts now… this should not be the case… I think they should revert the melee attack to being focused on anti building only again but… also give it a cannon on its back that is just for transport, so the unit becomes a cannon transport but with its siege DMG bonus in melee mode. Cannons were often transported on backs of elephants and then set up. What would make this cannon different that others is a longer set up time, and also once set up is immobile (elephant disappears) It then only does damage to infantry with no bonus for buildings. Similar dmg as a light cannon with no bonus vs artillery or buildings (but ships ok) (with a longer range like a light cannon it could be the primary anti ship weapon, and not strong enough to counter falconets) and allow the short range version of a non artillery culverin unit like you described for the siege elephant.

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Sounds like Zamburaks are underused because Howdahs are too good relative to them. Some pretty minor tweaks to Howdas wouldn’t rock the boat too much. Adjust their siege multiplier from x2.25 → ~x3.5 and drop their heavy cav multiplier from x2.75 → x2.5 and that’s all you’d really need. Another upgrade (or shifting a card to an upgrade) for Zamburaks could pick up the slack.

Ranged cav plus culvs (who still greatly outrange Howdhas) would hold up against that. Both units are also super demanding on population space so that would only be like 20 units in your army.

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I could get behind a Siege Elephant that just pulls along a big cannon or carries it on its back. That could be a good anti-ship and anti-building equivalent to a Mortar. Maybe it could even switch between a siege tag when set up and a heavy cav tag while in limber and have a decent melee attack in that mode too.

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Zams have a place in Sup games and even in TR but it is that they take 2 cards that are better used for other things, and also I think DE still has them training at slow speeds. The only thing that they need to make them TR viable is a quicker train time to spam out since India has no units like that, but to keep it balanced needs moderate stats, which is the Zams case is HP, They are not well suited for TR because they have 12 range, and have to fight for position on the front line with sepoy which are more efficient use of resources and better all round. Howdas fit in nicely as sepoy form the front line, then howdas will get behind them, and the gurkas will be protected in the back.

Howdas and any light cav are not good substitutes for anti artillery in any case because of range. Cannons are in the back of armies so to reach them with a howdas range puts them on the front lines (about 4 spaces from the front lines), right in front of the enemy to get shot down, and even with an impressive shot, since its not artillery fire, only does 25% of that damage. Its a very costly way to counter artillery. Its only good in certain situations of last resort or the player is out of position. There will always be a need for a siege ele.

There is really no good reason to remove siege ele.

One could make an argument about cannon, but I think whats at the consulate is suffice or could/ should be modified from there as to train individual cannons, allow them to pop at shipment points, and MAYBE give an option for sacred fields to have a reduced rate to gather export. That with the ability to get 60% more are all great options that do not dramatically change the civ, and if put all together may be stronger than anticipated.

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They really ought to get +1 range with each upgrade, or at least have something equivalent to the cavalry caracole upgrade. It makes no sense that a camel with a cannon on its back would be a low ranged unit that is outraged by Dragoon pistols.

Siege elephants in their current form need to go. If they need to be kept, they could work as a transport for a mortar equivalent cannon that unpacks and doesn’t fire from the elephants back. If the consulate suffices for obtaining cannons then it should be good enough to make up for not having an exact culv equivalent.

That would be a reasonable change.

That doesn’t really make sense. I think the best way to give the Asian civs access to more export would be a tea plantation building that would generate coin and could be toggled to an increased fraction of export. Then you could do away with the confusion of rice paddies that are for either and don’t even have a visual indication of what they are set to.