But locked behind a Castle and a UT
And? Thatās twice the Aztec bonus, now compare the tech tree of Aztecs and Saracens.
Exactly this is pretty much the only scenario (and as you say not that uncommon on arena) where monk UT comes into play. And getting inquisition here is pretty good. Bohemian UT obviously is too expensive for this one and orthodoxy is crap. Madrasah would be worth it in this one of you lose like 3 or 4 monks but problem is the tech kinda encourages you to lose army. I just think itās a bad design. I mean the idea is to not lose these super expensive monks so Iād rather not get the tech and get more actual military instead.
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Does fire insurance encourage you to burn your house down? No. (unless you can get away with it and the insurance payout is greater than the value of the asset.)
Itās there so if your house does catch fire your loss is partially mitigated. What it does do is create a moral hazard to try and build a house in a more fire prone location (assuming the insurance agency is not pricing risk appropriately).
Madrasah works the same way. It presents the opportunity to exploit a moral hazard. You are effectively paying a small sum to reduce the risk associated with more risky monk play. The upside stays the same. The downside is reduced. Ergo you can afford to make riskier plays with monks where other civs would not be able to.
Its not the best tech but its pretty clear it doesnt encourage you to lose army.
Well okay it maybe doesnāt encourage me to lose army but makes losing army less hurt instead of giving me a positive advantage.
And btw if fire insurance amounts to 1 month of my rent Iām not gonna get it. If you go monk fast imp your res are extremely tight. Like getting chemistry is even super hard and basically impossible to get if you research madrsasah before (Iād always prefer having bbc).
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Heck bro, you answered yourself. So I donāt understand why youāre contesting someone else?
The unit viability drops off considerably in most games , for the overwhelming MAJORITY of players by the time you can get madrash.
Thatās enough to see it changed
thatās not really how the game works though. Itās a lose less scenario, but doesnāt help you win more. Like almost every other bonus. Franksā arm list of civ bonuses stack in such a way that they can much more easily win, but thankfully Saracens get a UT so that when they mess up, it hurts less? What?
So how are they supposed to get ahead if the bonus isnāt helping them to get ahead, while everyone else is getting a bonus that helps them get ahead?
I donāt think youāre understanding what gamers would prefer to have.
But more towards the balance of the game, doesnāt Lancasterās square law, almost indicate that theoretically madrash is inherently weaker, being an āinsurance policyā as opposed to an actual military buff, in comparison to civs that get effective military buffs from there UTs( Sicilians for maximum winning of this discussion)
Thanks for coming to my Tedtalk
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This has two solutions. You can either just straight up abandon monks as a design parameter in late castle and imp and balance the game accordingly. Or you can improve monk use QoL to make them work in imp then keep the monk UTs. E.g. a hotkey for separating and grouping units automatically. Theres no objective reason to prefer one solution over the other. You can balance either option.
Regardless what madradah is and is not good at doing is clear cut from a game mechanics perspective. Conditional on monks being a well designed unit the UT is decent just because its so cheap.
Iām not saying the tech is good. Im just pointing out exactly what it does and how its optimized.
Theres a difference between coming to a conclusion based on a real analysis and coming to a conclusion via ātruthinessā and hand waving. One might come to the same conclusion either way but at least the analysis sheds light on the total design space available to the developers and whether one is jumping the gun in terms of picking a solution.
Also theres a lot of āplan Bā stuff designed into the game. The biggest example is that in a lot of respects imperial age flexibility is often āpriced inā as a plan B by having weaker early games. One of the reasons the game even has the meta it does is that this āpricing inā might have been done incorrectly. That is players are not indifferent in terms of intertemporal trade off, which is a requirement for this pricing in to have been done correctly. So again there are two solutions: abandon all plan B dynamics or fix the dynamics of the game such that players can actually utilize flexibility and backup plans and comebacks, etc.
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How about an added effect on Madrasah being: āMonasteries can train Mamelukesā?
It will make both Madrasah and Mamelukes better, as both are currently heavily underappreciated or underused
Two birds in one stone
Also historically accurate
OP.
For what Mameluke offers, OP. This unit can steamroll throu everything what is Cavalry, kite to death all Infantry, and even tank significant amount of arrows (24) being also ranged.
I had Idea what can Madrasah gives.
Madrasah can boost research time and lower prices of Monastery Techs. Maybe also for some University Techs.
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Well, instead of being a return after the monk dies, why not a straight up cost discount, if we are keeping the current effect at all? Thatās more applicable, and I think itās unique.
Would definitely prefer this to the current option. Although I guess the actual numbers are highly debatable, especially since you have a whopping 20% discount for port monks.
The tech would likely need to not cost gold? Otherwise it pays back too late?
I agree there are alternatives, which are probably better for the game in the long run, if the Devs had the time(as discussed in your thread about balance) But like so many other changes to the game, fixing a UT is likely easier than fixing something as complex as monk viability in late castle/ imperial age
Either way you have inspired me to try use monks even more, especially with theocracy
I agree this is most likely the original intent of the Devs, especially considering āgunpowder civsā(like Turks and Italians) and their previously almost universal slow ecos. And as you say, possibly not balanced correctly, thus leading to simply buffing their early ecos(Italy) or military bonuses(Turks), because itās much easier.
In the same way itās likely easier to change madrash to affect a more user friendly unit or affect less user friendly monks in a more viable manner
I personally think the best compromise would be something like giving Saracens the effect of Madrasah as a default civ bonus, and to change the effect of Madrasah to āMonks can convert buildings at distanceā (at a higher cost and/or locked behind imperial age of course). That way the identity and name of the UT remains, makes the previous effect meaningful in a more convenient timeframe (early-mid castle age during a monk-siege push), gives a good reason to keep training monks in late game, and gives an interesting buff to Saracens without changing their overall game plan too much.
I would propose for this version of Madrasah a cost of 950 food, 700 gold, and to become the new imperial age UT (Zealotry is too expensive to be used in castle age and locked behind a castle, so hardly useful until late castle, kinda like Stirrups).
I got this Idea in another thread:
What about: Monks generate Gold while healing?
This could be useful to sustain the high Gold cost of the saracen army.
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That would be sufficient
If only the tech was called Martyrs and returned 75-80% of the cost, I think it would make more sense. A religious school has nothing to do with the death of monks
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Now that you put it that way, youāre totally right. Should be some kind of boost for monks, not something tied to their deaths.
Since memelukes are borderline useless why not make the monk synergies well with them to make them more viable. For exemple masdrash makes monks healing memlukes faster and from more range. Something like that. All the micro nerds would love that. Or healings memlukes return gold.
Itās something I wonder sometimes. But it probably has to do with balance being thought out first and the tech name later, I donāt know.
Like Huns Atheism, it would make more sense to me if it made Tarkans immune to conversion or (more radical and unlikely) made enemy relics not generate gold.
Madrasah have now been replaced by Counterweights which gives Mangonels and Trebuchets 15% attack and swapped with Zealotry that became a Castle Age technology.
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Delete the post now 11
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