S.Rider trains in 20 seconds which is the fastest (tied with Imperial Camel Rider) among all non-castle unit without any upgrade.
With 1.6 base speed (1.76 after Husbandry), S.Rider is the fastest land unit in the game.
With 1.75 base ROF, they are the fastest attacking non-castle land unit without any upgrade and civ bonus. Archers can fire faster than them only after researching Thumb Ring.
I never understood why this unit that designed to counter ranged units and siege is so good at melee. They win 1v1 against a LS which is really OP tbh. And in Imperial age, they can kill a THS in 1v1 and even a Champion if they strike the first hit. So it can go either way. Their ROF should be increased to 2.0 like 99% of the units in this game.
About speed, I have seen an argument that if there is speed is not higher than Light Cav, they won’t be used for raiding. I don’t necessarily agree with this. But if they are meant to be faster than LC, I think Husbandry can be removed from Gurjaras. This will make S.Rider a bit slower and their Camel Rider with extra MA becomes a Camel parallel of Teutons knight with extra MA.
Yeah, Shawarma Riders are still ridiculous. They’re even somewhat comparable to conquistadors in that a few of them, well-microed, can cause a lot of of damage, but IMO their Cost-to-Chaos-Caused ratio is significantly better, they scale better, and they’re more accessible. In addition to the three things you mentioned, Shrivamsha obviously has projectile avoidance and is a UU that is trained at the stable without any tech required to unlock (-the only useful UU this is shared with is the Slinger, the rest being ships or meme units).
The unit arguably has 5 gimmicks or areas of superiority, and along with the civ itself (especially before the small recent nerfs), makes me think the devs took SoTL’s “How to make OP civs” video to heart. And IMO the Shrivamsha rider is at least on par - and probably worse - than pre-nerf Sicilian Hauberk Cavaliers as far as the annoyance of dealing with it.
Shriv needs its wings clipped anyway, just has too much going for it for a unit that is 20g cheaper than a Steppe Lancer, but a lot more broadly useful. I’ll leave that to others to do the calculus on what would be the best choice, but IMO reduced speed, increased TT and/or cost, maybe even being moved to Castle, are all possibilities. I also think their projectile ability should be adjusted somewhat, to avoid the ridiculous spectacle of them tanking BBC/BBT/SO shots, and making any kind of defensive building look like a joke.
It is OK to dodge arrows. Dodging all projectiles including bullet/throwing axe/cannon/ still does not make sense to me. Ranged units with melee atk and anti-cav projectiles from GC and mameluke should not be dodged which has higher frame delay and hard to focus fire.
I think the whole shield thing makes no sense.
Better just let every 3rd arrow miss or something. Still enough to make it anti-ranged but it at least gives a chance to high-cost or slow-attacking ranged units.
Also speed is probably the biggest issue with this thing. I think the game just can’t handle that fast units. I’ve seen crazy interations with arrows because of this, that can’t be in the interest of the designer.
Yeah It’s a broken unit, alongside other UU for gurjaras, or everything gurjaras-related tbh lol. They should definitely Attack slower and cost a bit more Gold to produce
This is something that I think would be great. I also didn’t realise Shrivamsha Riders attacked that fast, so ROF increasing to 2.0 alongside Husbandry removal would be a good step in nerfing Gurjaras without killing their identity. It’s also not going overboard, with other options in the future to nerf as well if this isn’t enough.
Considering the cost and the fact it’s meant to be a knight replacement meant this was understandable, if this was on many other civs it would’ve been fine, but coupled with the speed, eco, and access to buffed camels and chaks, makes it seem excessive
I still say the speed should be nerfed first (or remove husbandry, but that’s counter intuitive to the rest of their theme) and then re-asses
Best starting nerf is to make it only dodge primary arrow pierce attacks. No ranged melee, and not stuff that isn’t an arrow/bolt/spear. So it’ll dodge archers, and ships, and maybe scorpions, but not BBCs, or Onagers, or Mamelukes. And it won’t dodge bonus damage, so even if it dodges the base damage from a Genbow, it’ll still take the bonus damage. Simple.
While I agree this unit needs a nerf with also many other aspects in Gurjaras but nerfing Shrivamsha speed and ROF is a bad and terrible idea, Shri rider should be fast and attack fast to catch and kill archers and do it’s porpose very well as anti-projectile unit.
For me I suggest to nerf it’s gold cost a little bit, and make the unit unable to dodge melee projectiles, siege and gunpowder.
Still Shrivamsha rider is a solid melee unit.
It wins 1v1 vs a LS that costs basically the same in castle age. (9 hits v 9 hits but better ROF)
It’s basically even 1v1 vs a Champ in imp. (8 vs 7 hits but attacking faster, so it can go either way depending on who strikes first)
It’s a bit weird that a unit that has a special mechanic that makes it exceptionally strong vs certain unit classes still perform so well against the basically complete opposite of these units.
Don’t forget that bec of the high speed shrivamshas also can always decide which fight they want to take. That means if the opponent has a bigger mass and would snowball with the help of lanchester they just don’t engage but if they have the higher mass they can take the fight and win with lanchester even against units they would lose 1v1 to.
In addition to this they even cost a very low amount of gold. Wich is weird, cause in most cases versatility, utility, range, speed and the ability to raid are the factors that usually qualify for being a high gold cost unit. And shrivamsha has all of them but range.
Ofc shrivamshas perform not as goog in a direct battle vs knights. But this has more to do with the sheer power knights have rather than the shrivamsha. It’s a deceiving tes also because you wouldn’t engage vs knights with your shrivamshas. You would engage with your camels.
This is probably the most “wait, but there’s more …” unit. They are cheap, and have the ability to dodge arrows. They are also produced from stables immediately in castle age. Wait, did I say arrows? I meant all projectiles, not just arrows. They can sit and take shots from a bombard forever because their shield recharges that quickly. Oh, did I tell you that they are the fastest land unit in the game(except maybe cuman scouts)? An onager has zero chance against them, even if you don’t micro. They dodge that too. btw, you can lower their (already cheap cost) by researching a unique tech. One last thing, I promise, they do 40% extra damage against mounted units. It’s kinda ridiculous.
Gurjaras mounted Units Deal 40% more Bonus damage, but shrivamsha Riders dont Deal any Bonus damage, so they’re Not affected by that civ Bonus.
But yeah they’re still stupidly good
I see, they have no bonus damage. But wait, they are one of the fastest (if not the fastest) cavalry unit to train, at a 20 seconds creation time.
Shitposting aside, they and Hindustani are OP in the counters they have. Gurajas have camels for cavalry, shrivamsha for archers, and chakrams for infantry. More importantly, two of these units are extremely mobile, so they can protect each other and chakrams. These units do require gold, but who cares when you end the game at castle/early imperial and never get to trash wars.