First, I want to say that I am not crazy, and that I really think adding such a unit is a good idea.
I know what you are thinking, ‘but there are already too many CAs around!’. Which I agree with you, I think some civilisations should lose them, like the Teutons where you only make them by mistake, or for example some civilisations like the Sicilians could swap CA for Thumbring in my opinion.
This unity would serve the enormous transitional problem the Bulgarians have, which makes their feudal age enormously one-dimensional. Even if the MaA were stronger, nothing would change. People would still make more archers, making the Bulgarian even more forced to add skirms. As when playing against the Japanese, opening archery is a safe bet.
'OK, but then also why the Huns?’ Not to give the same unit to the Huns would be ridiculous, and this I think is evident given their history as horse archers. It would also strengthen their identity by removing the Crossbowman to compensate.
Trying to throw out an idea of what it should look like is not difficult.
Archer
Crossbowman
Arbalester
Scout Archer
Cavalry Archer
Heavy Cav Archer
Training time
35s
27s
27s
44s
34s
27s
Hit points
30
35
40
40
50
60
Pierce attack
4
5
6
5
6
7
Range
4
5
5
3
4
4
Accuracy
80%
85%
90%
50%
50%
80%
Speed
0.96
0.96
0.96
1.40
1.40
1.40
Line of Sight
6
7
7
5
5
6
Edit. It is a trainable unit in the archery range from the fudal age, not intended to replace the starting scout.
In the past I imagined it as a Jurchens UU (not thinking about the histrical fact). I added them +1 range and -2 CA armor class (and +2 vs spears) compared to yours.
Scout CA will be the best raiding units in feudal with range and speed, but they’ll be weak to skirms. It’s a little difficult to get mass them, but their ability will be strong, enough to kill skirms by 2 damages per a shot.
What dynastic is trying to say, you can use this cav archer to shoot the boar and lame it without any risk of getting hit back and walls will be useless to guard villagers as the unit can shoot above it.
I suspect that in practice it would be similar to the camel scout: too expensive to really be practical. Huns probably would be able to make use of it due to their discount (assuming it’s extended to feudal age). It would not be able to replace the scout as a starting unit though. Bulgarians would still have a tricky time affording them, but could transition into it in an extended Feudal (especially if they opened scouts rather than MAA, as both the scout archer and scout would benefit from bloodlines).
I don’t think you’d want to remove the Crossbowman from Huns to compensate. Archers are cheaper and would still hold their own niche for huns (ex: they’d be better at eliminating Feudal spears)
Not to mention that CA have garbage base accuracy, which you can’t improve until castle age with thumb ring. So to compensate you really need a mass of these scout cavalry archers before they start feeling like they’re landing any shots, and the suggestion was to have a slower train time…
Now, maybe if you had two different kinds of CA. Basically Scout CA would be to CA what the scout line is to knights. perhaps that could work. a cheap, faster, but much weaker alternative to the normal cavalry archer line.
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough, but it seemed edident to me that it is a non-starting unit, but that it only trains from the feudal age.
Yes, exactly. Some bonuses will have to be extended to be usable.
Yes, but it is a transitional unit. It’s like eagles, you start making them as you go to the next unit, also because it is the transition that kills Bulgarians. Then clearly it has to be tried.
