Biggest issues that need to be addressed in my opinion:
-
Outside of scholar mechanics with the free techs, the civ feels too vanilla in all ages other than castle age.
-
In dark + feudal age, it’s only basic units, with cheap (only because of landmark!) scholars to heal them or add to their production speed.
-
Imperial age techs take way too long and require too much setup to be useable in an action packed game. Basically useless in 1v1. Unless you literally go Imp to make hand cannons (vanilla) and bombards (vanilla). All the techs and bonuses take so long to ugprade that the game is decided way before then
*Civ only has one inherent eco bonus in the berry gathering. Sites give a little bit more gold, but only after researching a tech. Other than that, every single civ in the game will have a BETTER economy after researching the same eco techs, because they have other built in bonuses that Delhi lacks. They are “free” but actually not, because all the techs require an investment of scholars, mosques, landmarks, and population space that is neither collecting resources or fighting. So there is a significant cost.
Suggestions:
Re-work landmarks:
*Dome of the Faith: Simple and effective. Only Delhi Landmark that I have no quarrel with.
*Tower of Victory: Also gives bonus attack speed to cavalry… OR is a map-wide effect not based on aura around it. Even with both of these I still think that the cheaper scholars with a production building for them is still better, because the civ relies on scholars to function. Other suggestion: Completely scrap the concept and replace with a different landmark!
*Compound of the defender: Second best landmark, but still feels a little weak now that stone walls and towers have received major nerfs. Suggestion: Also decreases research times in Keeps (allows you to actually execute a keep-based population boom and overall gameplan).
*House of Learning: Also functions as a university. Can garrison scholars inside to boost overall research times and immediately gives access to university technologies upon reaching Imperial age. This would go a long way towards making those hard to ever research imperial techs more accessible! Also consider tinkering with the technologies available inside, most are extremely weak. Honed blades is good for Maa but almost useless for lancers, Reinforced Foundations is ok, saves some wood cost on housing, but the rest are so weak. Can be improved or replaced with new ideas.
*Hisar Academy: Far too weak. Consider the age 3 landmark Guild Hall (Free resource of your choice over time), High Trade House (Functions as a Super Hunting Cabin: large gold trickle+produces free food+can farm nearby). Compared to these resource producing landmarks the Hisar Academy is absolutely garbage
*Suggest to completely scrap this weak design and create something that boosts Technology research, preferably together with some new unique techs to give Delhi something interesting in the Imperial Age!
*Palace of the Sultan: Immediately grants access to the Siege Elephant upgrade, giving Tower Elephants the Xbow riders. This would actually make Tower Elephants more viable in Imperial Age.
Units:
*Delhi needs something non-vanilla on their unit roster in Feudal Age. Either a new unit, a weaker version of an Elephant unit or even a early age version of a Castle Age unit. Something to bring the civilzation access to what every other civilization gets in Feudal age.
*War Elephant: Far too weak for its cost against anything that isn’t cavalry, buildings or siege. Very vulnerable to massed units of almost any kind.
Suggest:
*Give it high ranged resistance against the Archer line. Still leaves it vulnerable to Xbows, but at least counters something ranged.
*Trample damage to all units surrounding the Front side of the Elephant (realistic).
*Reduce cost to match effectiveness (If it takes 5 Maa to counter it, then the cost should be equal for example)
*Should receive bonus damage to MAA line as well. Again realistic, guys with swords/shields should NOT be able to stand up to a fully armored elephant with rider. Guys with spears fill that role. Also how does it make any sense that knights are better against MAA than War Elephants?
War Elephant Conclusion: More cost-effective unique unit that counters MAA+Archers in close quarters but is still very vulnerable to spears and Xbows even more than most cavalry due to lack of maneuverability and high cost/unit.
Suggested bonus unit: Siege Elephant. Either a design that features a very slow and heavily armored elephant to function as or even replace the Ram for Delhi (similar to new AOE2 unit). OR Imperial Age unit with a mounted siege weapon on top (not sure which siege weapon, Springald would make the most realistic sense, but can be tuned for balance).
Overall thoughts:
Civ feels very weak outside of a few timing windows when the free techs are researched in Feudal and Castle Age during which the Civ feels quite strong. Upgrading units from a previous age to their improved version is SOOO much harder than with any other civ. Basically forced to trade your army and tech switch to units that don’t require research to upgrade. Example: Switching to Xbows after massing archers, Lancers after massing horsemen, Hand Cannoneers after massing Xbows.
Would overall love to see a civilization with a smoother consistent gameplan through the ages instead of one that is forced to rely on timing windows and to win before the enemy hits Imperial Age and gets their upgrades.
Also, I really miss the ability to research Sanctity in the Dark Age. Why remove this? It’s such a high cost to go out on the map in Dark Age while everyone else is teching up that it has its own inherent cost and can easily be punished or countered by an enemy that scouts what you’re up to. At least this gave Delhi something unique to do in the early game that goes with their identity.