If anything I think they should make Inquistion a civ bonus. That way maybe we can diversify them
You can also go Dravidian light cav, nobody expects that either. Doesn’t make it a good idea tho.
Nah, it might be time to update your view of the Spanish given all the new civs that are actually very strong with cavalry. The Spanish scouts into knights or knight rush is significantly below average (unless you take “average” to include civs that don’t get knights). Feudal Age blacksmith techs don’t cost gold anyway (except fletching), so Spanish save nothing until they get iron casting or chain barding, and the build speed is a negligible advantage outside of castle drops. Civs that I would consider very strong (S or A tier) at this would be Berbers, Burgundians, Franks, Magyars, Mongols, Huns, Khmer, Lithuanians, Poles, Slavs, maybe even Persians (B tier IMO).
Even civs that you don’t think of as cavalry/knight rushing civs have strong enough ecos that they can easily pull off a better scout/knight rush than Spanish. Japanese, Vietnamese, Bohemians, Chinese, Burmese, Sicilians, Teutons, Tatars, all either save significant amounts of resources on free/discounted upgrades and/or just have better ecos or bonuses (or stronger units in the case of Sicilians and Teutons) that directly improve scouts → knights.
Basically, Spanish scouts/knights is only somewhat better than civs that get terrible tech for knights (e.g. Malay), and only slightly better than a civ with no relevant eco/military bonuses (e.g. Goths) but that gets FU Castle Age knights. Spanish scouts/knights is viable for sure, but it’s shockingly unremarkable compared to the numerous civs that are actually good at it.
Is that an arena thing (Arena is the one map I almost never play)? Cause I’ve never heard of Spanish Monk Fast Imp as a strat (besides, what does fast Imp give you if you’re invested into Castles, a UT and monks? Seems like Castle Age Lightcav counter this whole thing.) As @TungstenBoar mentioned, in most cases you get a lot more value from a Spanish Castle by going conqs, rather than using it to slightly buff your monk play. That and monks usually being less viable lategame is mainly why I think Inquisition is a bad tech.
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Yes. Monk fast imp is arena exclusive strat (as basically any other aggressive monk play). You go up like 27+2 or so, make 2 monasteries in the center and follow up with forward castle to go imp. There is barely any way your opponent is imp before you and imp monk treb is super hard to stop. And inquisition is a strong buff for your monks. You’ll just trep down tcs and if opponent atks you convert their units (or buildings for that matter). Even light cav doesn’t stop that (unless you get heresy maybe). Besides you can always add couple of spears.
Imo way better play with Spanish than conq play that just die to monk defense (at least in 1v1).
I remember in SotL’s Lithuanian overview he said Lithuanians are the 2nd civ focussed on Cavalry and Monks, the first being Spanish.
Inquisition and Hussite Reforms are the only monk techs which are good.
This mostly helps in trash wars, which Spanish are already good for.
Hmm, I guess that makes sense, though it seems like it depends on a lot of things going right, like uncontested map/middle control or better eco opponents not going fast Imp. Curious if you know of any recs/casts of this (preferably 2K+)
With no major eco nor military bonus (and bad archers), Spanish fast imp is a bad idea
But they arent officially labeled a cavalry civ.
My bad. I got confused by SotL.
But then it’s equally ridiculous. Monk and Gunpowder civ, neither of which are meta. Atleast the Bohemians with a similar tag have a Transition to play their gunpowder units.
Archers → Crossbowmen → Crossbowmen + Hand Cannoneere → Arbalesters + Hand Cannoneers → Hand Cannoneers
Who cares about civs label. They have FU paladin, hussar and two mounted UU, that’s at least as much of a cav civ as stuff like Cumans and Persians.
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Well with 2 monasteries you usually get the map control. Ofc you add spears if opponent goes heavy on light cav production. Amd sure there always ways to deny forward castle attempts which is why strat is somewhat risky. However spanish building rheir stuff faster certainly helps here.
No you won’t have better eco no matter what. You’re faster to imp because you only get like 5-10 farms and sell wood instead of making farms and put lots of vils on gold. So you’re almost guaranteed to have timing advantage but your eco behind that is absolutel trash. But that’s okay as you only need gold and some wood for monk trep production.
I’m pretty certain there was spanish inquisition forward in motc tourney. But I have no idea af which point. All I can say is it wasn’t in final and also not in semi.
But if it’s about the build and not necessarily the spanish version (which is just good instance of it but basically there are a lot of good civs for monk fast imp) just go through one of jon slows streams. I didn’t watch his stuff the past months bit he used to the the 27+2 into double monastery and forward castle fast imp all the time and I’m confident you’ll find such a game pretty quickly.
That transition is very awkward since HCs cost so much food. Tbh this is kinda unrelated, but HCs should cost less food
But atleast there is some synergy in their bonus!
With fletching line free (naval bonus), the transition to and from CA will help. If player doesn’t want to use that, the Knight play will also help setup for the Conq play.
I honestly don’t know if the Conq is a great unit, or if it is the only unit worth making for Spanish.
Spanish are not a different civ on non-arabia maps, they still make Conquistidors, be it Arena, Nomad, hideout, etc. It’s just that different features help them get there (faster building TC on Nomad and protection of walls on Arena and hideout).
I meant the risk of facing opponents who also decide to go fast imp, but have better eco, or bonuses that help them get there faster (Saracens, Bohemians, Malay, Khmer, Italians, Byz, etc)
It is quite ironic to see a civ with 2nd most open tech tree in game goes for only one unit in most games.
Persians are below average but I won’t call them weak.
Partially this is a reason. Not 100% though as it has been pointed out that even in guaranteed FC or Drush → FC Arabia maps, Spanish was below average. Meta has been changed since DE. FC UU just doesn’t work that much even in closed type Arabia maps. Before DE, 2017-2018 and pre DE 2019, FC Plumed archer was very common for Mayans. This is now limited to RF only. Plumed cost increased a bit but I don’t think that should be such a huge impact. Spanish is one of the civ, that didn’t get any major change to match with the meta.
I don’t even think that’s a good decision here. You need to know for sure your opponent goes fast imp (if not it’s looking really bad for you, opponent can just boom while you spend your imp momentum getting rid of castle in front of your base). Also it’s likely you didn’t get relics so if you go fast imp monks yourself you’ll have less gold. In some instances you can play 1tc imp arbalests which might be the best counter (but still dies sometimes).
Well you still lack one of the two most important unit lines almost entirely so if you count tech tree holes you might be right but in practice spanish isn’t really a diverse civ. They don’t really have a lot of options before late game.
Archer line and?
Kinda true.
Can they get a monk bonus? The removed cheaper monastery?
I dont really see this rework, as much:
- A minor help in early. (Food dont decay?)
- Maybe swap Inquisition and 25% extra gold from team bonus and UT so you have a bonus in 1v1 and you can research it if you want that 25% bonus gold in team games somewhat like paper money from chinese.
Little more.
Wow, I cannot wait to see how broken Aztec or Burmese monks will become when allied with Spanish.
Hussar. If you have arb and hussar that’s the two best units imo. Spanish have hussar but missing even xbow is just so bad.
Well they already have two monk bonuses. I’d rather say make missionary more useful. Although tbh I don’t particularly like giving them the kind of buffs sometimes proposed here. The unit makes up for the for largest disadvantage monks have (speed) so giving them the ability to carry relics or buff their range should go along with speed nerf imo. Or maybe one could make the missionary a unique upgrade like houfnice for bohemians (for instance improving speed and hp). But again not sure how good that would be as monk intensive play usually goes along with potato eco so you wouldn’t be able to afford it anyways if it was expensive (inquisition is cheap so it’s not a problem to get if you have castle up).
But other than I don’t think spanish need buffs tbh. They are great on nomad, decent on closed maps and pretty good at a lot of team game settings (just not arabia like maps). Since we have over 40 civs now imo it’s okay to have civs like that.
that makes no sense. there are a ton of civ that requires a castle for their UT and UU, this only requires a castle, not only it is built 30% faster and you can spam from monastery afterwards.