Teuton Armor Bonus should apply to their Cavalry Archers

This is a very minor change, because even with it, Teuton Cavalry Archers are gonna be very terrible, lacking Bracer, Thumb Ring, Parthian Tactics, Heavy upgrade…they’re probably the worst CA in the game.

But still, it’d be nice to see them get a little something to make them different. Why not give them the +1 and +2 melee armor bonus? Just change the bonus from “Barracks and Stable Units” to “Barracks Units and Cavalry”.

I could see some rare niche case where you surprise an enemy with cavalry archers and the extra 2 melee armor gives you the durability to achieve some goal. It’d be a very rare case, admittedly, but right now teuton CAs are pretty much useless, so why not?

They are also missing husbandry, and melee armor is rarely relevant for CA they faster than most melee units. It is like Andean sling Skirms where the only way to capitalize on Andean sling is to be in a position you should be avoiding.

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Yeah, it wouldn’t be a very common thing still, but at least they’d have something!

CA are better at defending themselves from melee attackers with Their mobility rather than there MA I against Camels would rather have +10% speed as opposed to +1/0. Also with the Teutons farming bonus you are encourage to make food units.

Why? It dowsnt fit the current civ at all and they wpuld still suck, and in general buffing a bad unit by giving them a weak bonus feels completely unnecesart when you could hust give them a tech or techs that would do the same but better. Absolutely pointless change

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The horse archers of Franks and Teutons should be replaced by mounted crossbowmen.

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That’d be the superior option yeah, but ultimately Teutons aren’t meant to be a CA civ AT ALL. The only reason to add this is to make their CAs a little bit unique and distinctive, and maybe create some theoretical situation where they could surprise someone.

It would be a VERY minor change, but it would take their CAs from ‘completely vanilla’ to actually being a little bit unique and interesting. This absolutely would not result in any massive changes to their win rates or anything, it’s purely for the sake of very rare niche scenarios and flavor.

Those where a thing historical but the problem is you cant really reload properly while mounted on a horse. So they would switch to a sword because holding a lance and a crossbow isn’t viable. So if they where to make it into the game they would be similar to light cav with a ranged charge attack.

Then why this change? No one want to make CA just to see they become a dead end on imp.

Tatar already got a UT that boost their armor and PA this is not unique.

which is? No because i hardly find a situation like this.

This change is as meaningless as bengalis getting supplies and gambesons knowing they dont have access to last inf armor upgrade.

It’d be a pure flavour change, and I can often get behind those.

But consider the flavour of the Teutons armour bonus. it is Melee attack units get armour bonus, not Mounted units get armour bonus.
As such, extending it to CA would weirden the flavour. Unless you also extend it to archers and skirms.

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The main reason not to apply it to their archer line in general is because those are actually useful and regularly used. CAs, by contrast, aren’t really used at all, so buffing them wouldn’t significantly change the overall balance of the civ.

When it comes right down to it, I don’t like any civ having some aspect that’s completely useless. I’d rather they have no CAs at all than a useless CA. But a memey CA with extra melee armor, that seems like the sort of thing that could actually be used sometime in some weird oddball niche case, so to me, it’d cool to have it. Because…why not? Doesn’t do any harm.

@TougherTrack508 nailed my main objection to this. I like “flavor changes” or extensions of existing bonuses where they make sense and/or are needed. I’m afraid this fits neither case. Teutons are already probably the most loaded civ as far as bonuses/UT effects, and extending one of their bonuses in a very non-intuitive way to a unit that will still not be good enough to see use is not interesting.

“Why not?” is never a sufficient reason to make a change. The harm that it does is to the logical aesthetics of the existing bonus, as well as unnecessarily eating design space (where this type of bonus might actually make sense on a new cav archer civ). Not only does the Teuton bonus only affect melee units (a civ theme), but it’s also logically consistent in that it only affects the units from 2 buildings. Randomly throwing 1 other unit in there from another building is weird. You could make the same argument for say, Yeomans affecting Briton cav archers. It “wouldn’t be OP” since they lack TR and PT, but it’s just a wacky change. Buffing units for the sake of possible meme play is weird as well, on par with giving Xolotl Warriors paladin stats and regen to make them more “interesting.”

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I think that’s a pretty serious exaggeration, lol. That would actually change the balance of the game outside niche scenarios. Honestly, even your example of Yeoman is a pretty major exaggeration; extra range is the most powerful stat an archer can have. Melee Armor is one of the weakest bonus stats an archer can have, which is why I felt safe suggesting it.

This isn’t JUST about ‘why not’, either; it’s about taking a useless unit and creating a rare niche case where it could potentially be mildly useful. I doubt teuton cavalry archers have ever been used in a serious game; why not give them at least a single small place where they could see some theoretical purpose? If they’re never meant to be used, why are they even on the tech tree?

This would actually make some historical sense: some English and Welsh yeoman archers were mounted. Admittedly they would dismount to shoot – the horses were used to get them into a suitable position. This is presumably what Britons’ cavalry archers represent.

I agree it would feel odd though – but I don’t think it’s as odd as extra melee armour for Teutons’ cavalry archers, who (if they existed) presumably wouldn’t have worn the kind of heavy armour that the bonus is referencing.

Perhaps so, but it would still be uncommon for Britons to go cav archers when their foot archers are easier to mass, get more range for free, and scale better into lategame. Yes it represents a stronger niche than you’re trying to create with Teuton CA, but it’s still a niche.

My one point of agreement with you is that some units exist in game without really being viable, and I’m open to some of those being removed. Cav archers, especially for some western European civs, just seem like a legacy of the original design where some of these civs covered large umbrellas and regional units weren’t really a thing outside of eagle warriors. There are also a couple civs with really bad Cavaliers that might stand to lose them.

Be that as it may, it would be a weird choice given the civ design in game. There are some strong distinctions between unit classes that don’t make that much historical sense (infantry and archers, archers and cav archers), but are important for civ design. But the skillset of mounted archery is different enough to where “cav archer civs” should usually have good foot archers, but the converse is not always true. Not to mention so many things which might have a strong historical justification but need to be withheld for balance or other reasons (e.g. Chinese and gunpowder units).

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Counterproposal. Remove armor bonus form cavalry, completely

im feeling pretty neutral on this. teutons won’t really go for CA regardless, because it is a big investment that wont pay off without heavy CA and bracer in imp. but it would sort of compensate for their lower speed. when knights catch up with them they won’t be as squishy.

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I just don’t think this is a relevant principle when it comes to non-essential subpar units within a civ, otherwise any unit that misses an upgrade or two or is otherwise lackluster can be seen as a potential candidate for such “compensation.”

Would be much more interesting on a new cav archer civ where it could actually be a relevant strength.

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I don’t disagree in principle, but I’m finding it hard to envision a good tanky cavalry archer concept. It’s basically directly contrary to their purpose. It sounds like a meme at best, which would be best as an extreme off-meta option on an existing civ, rather than as a focus of a new one.

Maybe envision Turks CA? They’re some of the best, yet all they have over others is tankiness. Obviously melee armor won’t help vs. ranged units, but it can be adjusted to provide a greater advantage in melee than Turk CAs have.

Wait, so randomly extending this bonus on the civ with possibly

(which will remain a terrible unit) is a good enough idea to propose and continually defend, but giving it to a civ where it could actually see some use is “a meme?” I’d say you’ve got that 100% backwards.

Sure, additional melee armor isn’t the first bonus you might pick for creating a strong cav archer (most of these are taken) yet it’s quite good when relevant. Getting all the upgrades for Cav Archers is rare and quite enough to make them viable even when fully generic. With 2,3, perhaps even 4 melee armor on top of that you have a knight/eagle/camel/pike resistant CA, which is a very solid niche. That’s more than enough to make it a good option in a ton of cases, not to mention that you could probably make it a top 3 CA civ if you threw in a synergistic eco bonus and UT that confers some modest additional benefit.

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