But xbows tank mangonel shots, also in many cases most of your archers don’t take a full hit.
I don’t say it’s “the reason” but it plays a role for sure.
yeah i know i was talking about imperial age, in castle yeah, that is a thing, but it’s still not as reliable as you might think. sometimes they die just as any other civ, and even then, it’s a pretty narrow windom in the game, on top of being niche to begin with.
a 10% speed bonus would make them indirectly more tanky, for example, thank some extra HP
Also worth mentioning that Elite Rattans have the same range as the arbalester (5+3 with bracer), and although they have a small frame delay, they have the same attack speed as well (1.8 with thumb ring researched).
So the range disadvantage argument is valid only when comparing the castle age rattan archer with crossbows.
Apologies my post wasn’t that well phrased. The point I was trying to make was that the high cost and lack of range on the non-elite version result in it being a unit that is very hard to transition into or build a mass of prior to late imp, with a mass being absolutely critical to have any sucess with it. It also doesn’t help that it has a very steep upgrade cost. You are usually better sticking with Arbs and transitioning into LC spam for late game.
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I see. And I agree with you on this.
Stat wise the Elite Rattan is very good, but it is much more practical to just stick with arbs anyway because of the costs and difficulty to reach a critical mass.
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1.) The Britons are in a very good place. The only consideration I would have for them would be to up their Imperial Age Scout line.
2.) The Mayan Problem is very well known.
3.) The Vietnamese HP bonus synergizes well with a late Castle Age/Early Imperial Age Cavalry Archer snowball. They appear to have been refused the Light Cavalry to drive that home.
4.) It is not actually bad to have a difficult civ to play.
5.) The lack of architectural upgrades hurts the Vietnamese badly in team games, making them more dependent on momentum than other civilizations. When they have momentum, they are quite able to drive it home. Fortified Wall helps them immensely on some maps.
6.) I have played the Vietnamese on team Water maps, and they do play fairly well. Rattans are a rare archer unit that can operate under sustained Galleon fire.
In my opinion, what vietnamese could need is some help against cavalry.
The HP bonus on archery range units is more a bonus to COUNTER than to attack. As a counter civ, it should need something to counter cavalry too.
If you look closely, most of the civs having good skirmishers have also a good counter to cavalry (at least FU halbs or something else).
Byzantines : discount on skirms and on halbs and camels
Incas : Unique tech on skirms, and FU halbs or kamayuks to counter cavalry.
Lithuanians : speed bonus and unique tech on skirm and halb
…
i don’t know what bonus could help while not being broken and not copying another bonus…
yeah that is why i proposed to up the range at 5 right from the castle age, to make it a proper contender for crossbows which are still much cheaper and easier to mass not needing a castle
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another route could be to add a new minor economic bonus that helps in the early game
Or just a little rework of the Hp bonus (15% feudal, 20% castle, 25% imperial ?) or a little buff for archery range units on top of the existing one (5% movement speed?) and a look at the Rattan in castle would help quite a lot
on top of a rework for paper money
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Seriously idk why people keep repeating that, especially since they have halbs like so many other civs.
Yeah a lot of civs, most civs have halbs.
Still cavalry dominates the ladder.
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I think it is based on the fact that Vietnamese have very strong skirms so they are decent against archer civs but that they lack a comparable option against cav
Altgough I think they are okay rn
I am surprised no one talked about the vietnamese elephant in the room
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Their eco bonus already is good. Not the very best but easily above average. And in castle age it’s actually a really strong booming bonus. Also since you know where your opponents tc is you oftentimes have more time to push deer.
Besides that their cav archer play can work here. Players started exploring that a year ago or so and now we can see it quite frequently. Saving all that wood makes it quite easy to mass ca in early castle age and then the extra hp makes them quite tanky.
you see them also because they are the only unit that get a real benefit from the 20% HP buff atm, but i do not think they follow the theme of the civ that well, since imho it is supposed to be a foot archer civs, not a cav archers, that would be more a mongol/huns/etc thing.
also going CA has inherent disadvantages, but it’s fine, but mostly it lock you out of rattan becasue they both are very expensive
i know their eco bonus is good! but since we are talking about a faction that i, personally, feel free to disagree, think need a bit o help in archers department, was proposing a different way to do so. i mean the possibilities are infinite for a slight buff to make them properly unique in the archer department, on top of paper money needing a serious rework
Well you wouldn’t go ca vs archers civs ofc. It’s just a tool you can use vs cav civs. Vietnamese is already the among the more flexible archer civs so why not have one that responds to the opponent depending on what they do instead of having another go foot archer each game civ. Makes them pretty interesting to play imo.
oh i agree that they are interesting! infact i play them over britons and mayans when i want to go archers mainly because they are more interesting imho.
that said, i still believe that an archer civilization should have a good archer bonus, and currently +6 to 12 HP (from archer to heavy cavalry archer) does not compare with faster shot from ethiopians, let alone cheaper cost from mayans or longer range from britons…
Except rattan are way better than xbows already. Against knight they take 30 shot to kill one compared to 40 from an an xbow. In rattan vs xbows fight it’s obviously a no contest. They are considerably faster than an xbows (1.1 vs 0.96 speed, and yeah, that makes a big difference in both rattan vs archer and rattan vs kts).
The lower range and bigger frame delay are necessary to make the rattan not completely busted.
Your solution btw won’t solve any problem on arabia, since the thing that keeps you away from rattan is still the 650 stone of the castle, while making them stronger on closed map, especially on tgs. You don’t need the extra range to force a fight against xbows
fai points, but i would argue that with better range and faster firing, in a real game situations crossbows performs equal if not better while costing much less, since you can save their critical mass by hit-and run much more efficiently.
that said, rattan are not bad by any means, i just think they are not over crossbows in castle and that they cost a lot of resources compared to a xbows
anyway, looking at all ratings and stats, seems indeed that vietnamese are not in a great spot, so they could use a look to make them a little bit more viable while not being toxic as mayas, and i know i’ve stressed this point a lot, but i really think their sole buff to archers should be more impactful.
i mean look at vikings, which are a strong civilization but not OP from my understanding, they have 20% HP but on units that have high HP base, that makes them really noticeably better in infantry vs archers or cavalry fights, they have a better eco bonus imho, on top of a great set of naval bonuses.
i think a 5% speed on top of the HP bonus would be both cool (new as far as archer bonuses goes) and enforces the theme of sturdier archers, or maybe just a increase to 25% more HP, splitting it into the ages if needed (15-20-25). arbalest would still die to onager btw (tops at 50 HP).
or make rattan same HP as archer line and benefit from the bonus, since it does not make sense that they do not benefit from it being archers, that way they would have same HP as xbows and arbalest making the comparison a bit better
on the topic of PAPER MONEY maybe we could propose a solution? it seems hat the developers have the intention to make it more appealing given the relatively fresh update to the tech they made (cost changes) but obviously there is still room for improvement. any ideas?