The Cuman Kipchak - An Analysis

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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I’ve been wanting to start a series of forum threads taking analysis of various units. Especially some that might be under-appreciated or need changes. The first unit I felt worthy of analysis was the Kipchak. Discussion is welcome here, and needed.

Cumans have seen a pretty wild ride since DE was released. The Kipchak went from a powerhouse unit to being hit by some pretty broad strokes against it, along with the Steppe Lancer. To add to the great Cuman anaylsis by @WoelsToWho here (mainly on the Steppe Lancer and Plate Barding Armor, but also on the Cumans broadly and the Kipchak) and some discussion started by @MasterSncKnight here, I thought this deserved a more in-depth analysis.

Before commentary, some data. We will compare in Post-Imp, with equal resources, how the Elite Kipchak performs against it’s most comparable unit: the Elite Mangudai. It also will be compared in a battle against FU Elite Skirmishers.

Tech Tree
the Mongols do not have access to Ring Archer Armor, losing out on 2 pierce armor - 4 on Mangudai, 6 on Kipchak. The Cumans are missing Bracer, and also have a lower minimum range to begin with, giving the Kipchak a considerably lower firing range of 6 when compared to the Mangudai’s 7, or Skirmisher’s 8. Damage output is considerably lower on the Kipchak, topping out at 8 vs Mangudai’s 12. HP is also lower on the Kipchak, 65 vs 80. The firing rate is also 30% faster on the Mangudai - the damage output is significantly larger when compared to the Kipchak, even with the 2 additional arrows at 3 pierce, 0 melee each.

Battle Results
In all battles, units are patrolled in.

In a battle of equal resources (30 Mangudai, 38 Kipchak), the Kipchak win with an average of 5 units remaining. In equal numbers, the Mangudai slaughter with over half their army (17) remaining.

In equal resource battles against 40 skirmishers (38 Kipchak, 30 Mangudai), the Mangudai narrowly outperform the Kipchaks with 4 skirmishers remaining for the Mangudai vs 6 for Kipchaks.

The Kipchak is very fast - narrowly outspeeding an already extremely quick Elite Mangudai in Post-Imp, although the speeds are almost identical. Interestingly enough, this allows them to outrun Camel Riders. Mangudai can as well, just not as cleanly, as their speeds are evenly matched with Camel Riders.

Analysis
The Cumans have an awkward position with the Kipchak. When upgraded, it is a fairly strong unit. However, it is very frail and requires numbers to be effective even more so than Mangudai - it is decimated in groups without a numbers advantage. Kipchaks do train in 25% less time (30% faster - 20s vs 26s). However, the Kipchak is more situational with it’s limited range. It has a frame delay of 0, making hit-and run tactics even more effective than Mangudai with a Frame Delay of 5 (Cav Archers have a frame delay of 10), however, due to its low damage output it performs very poorly against well-armored units, even in mass, when compared to the Mangudai.

The Mangudai gets bonus damage against the targets usually most resistant to archer fire, siege. Kipchaks are more effective against rams than the Mangudai by a small margin due to melee damage on their arrows, but do much more poorly against Trebuchets and other armored units. Against FU Paladin, Kipchaks do 1 damage, while Mangudai do 5. Assuming all arrows hit from a Kipchak, that raises to 3, but the accuracy on additional arrows is very low.

The Kipchak is an interesting unit, but it’s one unique feature - firing multiple arrows - is less useful against siege than the Mangudai, and less useful against armored units do to an extreme damage advantage by the Mangudai.

Missing Bracer is also a massive weakness to all of the Cumans archers (and buildings), arguably worse than missing Ring Archer Armor.

My personal proposal is between a few options :
a) increase the amount of arrows fired from 2>3 for Kipchak, and 3>4 for Elite Kipchak. This would reinforce the unique attributes of the unit.
b) increase the base damage of the Kipchak by 1, and Elite Kipchak by 1. This would allow them to do a reasonable amount of damage to upgraded Cavalry.
c) increase the base HP of Kipchak from 40>50, and 45>50. This would make the unit more versatile, and perform a little better in pitched battles.
d) Give Cumans Bracer. This would definitely require further balancing to the tech tree if done, however.

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It’s a pretty good analysis, however I think it doesn’t emphazise enough one of the Kipchack’s strenghts: gold savings. They cost only 35 gold, the elite upgrade doesn’t cost gold. And for this price, the unit is waaaay bulkier than foot archers thx to Bloodlines and Parthian tactics. Its low cost gold, speed and 0 frame delay makes it an easy to produce and use support unit for your knights.
I’m surprised that they are cost-effective vs Mangudai tho, even OP-melting-through-castles kipchaks would lose to an equal number of mangudai before the nerf.
I also think that the comparison with Mangudai isn’t very relevant, since you don’t take civs only for the UU. The best comparison would have been to the Cuman HCA, since it’s the other cav archer option Cuman do get.

I think the blacksmith is fine as it is. Also, he doesn’t want to remove Plate barding armor to give them bracer but to change the Steppe Lancer. Also, FU Cuman HCA+Steppe Husbandry = danger.

Really, the Kipchak isn’t to worry about. The unit’s different attributes actually make the player think about chosing either they or normal cav archers. It’s nice to have some civs who doesn’t have either a situational-only UU or a 100% must use UU.

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Nice thoughts. The lower gold cost is definitely a draw to the Kipchak, it’s nearly half that of Mangudai.

Honestly, I feel it’s almost in the perfect place right now - it’s just missing a LITTLE bit. All the suggestions except for Bracer are very minor. I think the extra arrow, 1 extra pierce damage, or HP bonus would be just enough.

Also, he doesn’t want to remove Plate barding armor to give them bracer but to change the Steppe Lancer. Also, FU Cuman HCA+Steppe Husbandry = danger.

Very true. He did mention buffing the Elite Kipchak back to 4 arrows in that same post, but Plate Barding wasn’t in the context of the Kipchak. I didn’t think about Steppe Husbandry, however - that’s a very good point. Edited my post to that end. I keep the Bracer suggestion but drop it way down, and added a note. I’m not sure it’s a good idea myself either.

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Welp, we will see eventually what happens. I think right now Tatars are getting more focus from the devs (if they have the same opinion about their relatively low strenght than everything else has)

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I actually really like the Tatars, and I agree. I plan to make a over-arching post about them at some point as well.

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According to everyone else, just because Cumans don’t get bracer it means their HCA are pretty much non existant and should never be used in any situation, so it’s not even worth comparing.

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Going to agree here. Their HCA are pretty much useless. Steppe Husbandry is strong, but you’re spamming away so much gold it’s insane and you’re not getting great value for it.

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In the past people would refuse to click the cav archer button unless they were playing Huns. Now people are much more willing to experiment with them (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imQ3pKpulYk&t=950s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-wJIHJdznM&t=8261s) The HCA+Hussar all in as Celts proved to be quite effective for a civ whose HCA loses to even Teuton CA. Just imagine how this would have ended if he was Cuman instead!

That is true. I guess it’s among those bonuses that require some planning to be useful.

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They should buff the tech to make it more viable imo, like reducing the CA gold amount as well, even if by a little. Kipchaks already do more by actually being able to do damage to rams and stuff, let me spam my weak aass cav archer without burning my entire gold stockpile.

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The deal is that reducing the gold cost is stepping on the Kipchak’s role. And the Kipchak deals more damage against rams and huskarls/eagles, sure, but HCA deals more to everything else. In the old SL thread, I compared how both dealt with halbs and the HCA proved to be much more efficient. For instance when they are done killing a FU halb, the E.Kipchak still has three volleys to go before finishing as well.

The -1 less range is a hindrance, but at least Parthian tatics + full armor allows them to raid just fine. Also, this tankiness overcomes the lack of Bracer when they fight vs other archers.

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AN UPDATE!

I’m much happier with the Kipchak in its current position. I’m glad the developers took my suggestion of upping the arrow count into consideration. I think it was the best choice overall between the options, although an HP buff still isn’t out of the question after looking at the updated test results. Performance isn’t as good as previously imagined.

I’ve updated my battle testing results. Same methodology, same scenario, however I’ve edited the pathing and AI behaviour to better simulate a real battle. I noticed the AI was making some strange choices, so I disabled it entirely to keep the battles clean. Averages were taken from 5 clean tests. In all battles, units are patrolled in. Old values are in brackets, updated values are stated directly.

Note there are some drastic differences in performance here - however, I’m very confident in these tests now. They are clean, and all units attack at near peak potential.

In a battle of equal resources (30 Mangudai, 38 Kipchak), the Mangudai win with an average of 3.8 Mangudai remaining (5 Kipchak). In equal numbers, the Mangudai still crush the Kipchak army - instead of winning with over half their army (17) remaining, however, they perform slightly worse with 16.6 units remaining.

In equal resource battles against 40 skirmishers (38 Kipchak, 30 Mangudai), the Mangudai fall far behind the Kipchaks. The Mangudai are decimated by Elite Skirmisher, with 12.6 Skirmishers (4) remaining, versus 6.6 Kipchaks (6).

Analysis
The Cumans have a potential powerhouse of a unit with the Kipchak. However, it is still very frail even with Bloodlines and requires numbers to be effective even more so than Mangudai - it is decimated without a numbers advantage. Kipchaks do train in 25% less time (30% faster - 20s vs 26s). However, the Kipchak is more situational with it’s limited range. It has a frame delay of 0, making hit-and run tactics even more effective than Mangudai with a Frame Delay of 5 (Cav Archers have a frame delay of 10), however, due to its low damage output (and much slower rate of fire) it performs very poorly against units with high damage, even in mass, when compared to the Mangudai. Against FU Paladin, Kipchaks do 1 damage, while Mangudai do 5. Assuming all arrows hit from a Kipchak, that raises to 4, but the accuracy on additional arrows is low. Against units with very high armor, however, such as the Elite Skirmisher, it performs far better due to the blanket of arrow fire.

The Mangudai gets bonus damage against the targets usually most resistant to archer fire, siege. Kipchaks are more effective against rams than the Mangudai by a small margin due to melee damage on their arrows, but do much more poorly against Trebuchets and other armored siege units.

Hit and run tactics are very strong with the Kipchak, and can destroy armies quite easily if microed properly due to their incredible speed.

I still feel they are slightly too weak, however, and need a very small buff to help balance the scales.

My only suggestion is a 5HP boost to standard and Elite Kipchak. Either this, or raise the base HP of both to 50 (+10 for Kipchak, +5 for Elite).

Otherwise, they are perfectly balanced in my opinion, especially due to their gold cost. It’s much easier to mass Kipchak than Mangudai, and they can be supported by other gold units (such as Steppe Lancers) due to their relative cheapness.

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sounds great man! thanks for the in depth analysis! the kipchak should theoretically perform worse than mangudai in a head on fight(maybe not as poorly though), due to their massive boost in hit in run fighting… and as you yourself mention kipchak amass a lot faster than mangudai! thus allow the cuman to get the edge in sustained fighting… or to preemptively attack the mongol… (which is what the faction revolves around)

wrt the additional arrow missing, like the armbai, many times inaccuracy is a boon when fighting larger groups to reduce over killing… (as you might know yourself)

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Thanks for the feedback man. I’m glad to do it! I love the unorthodox civs; they make the game so much more interesting. The Kipchak is my favorite UU.

I haven’t done a micro test; although the one thing Kipchaks have over Mangudai is that they can actually run them down and out hit-run them. There’s no other unit that can do that. That’s why Mangudai are so strong; they can take whatever fights they want, and chase down almost any unit. Kipchaks can do that to them, and have 0 frame delay so can keep fighting during the chase.

I think a little more HP would have them in a much better position balance wise. It’s almost perfect, just a touch more. They lose a bit too badly against other ranged units.

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I like to use the new Kipchak I just wish their firing animation would be synced to the projectile. It looks too weird right now I can’t get myself to use them.

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I agree. That would be a nice QoL feature.

That, and the HP buff. :wink:

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In a battle of equal resources (30 Mangudai, 38 Kipchak), the Kipchak win with an average of 5 units remaining.

In a battle of equal resources (30 Mangudai, 38 Kipchak), the Mangudai win with an average of 3.8 Mangudai remaining (5 Kipchak).

What? The kipchak got a buff and now performs worse? Did you mistype or only perform a single trial?

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Wasn’t a mistype, or a single trial.

The AI was making some weird pathing and fighting decisions in my first round of tests. After the units were patrolled in, sometimes some of them would try and leave the fight or run around insight from a different location. When I say some, I mean two or three. When I recreated the scenario after the update, I picked up on them, eliminated the issues, disabled the AI entirely, and retested multiple times taking exact counts and the averages.

As I stated in the post above, there were issues in the first round of tests that I eliminated here and I still feel the Kipchak needs a small buff because of it.

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OK fair enough, didn’t see that explanation.

Not sure they really need another buff. They already trade near evenly resource wise with the best cav archer unit in the game per your tests, if you value gold even moderately more than wood they are a steal. Plus they are a tinge better at hit and running with it’s slightly faster speed and 0 frame delay (Mangudai 1 more range counteracts this) as you said. Plus quicker to create [as you said]. 5 HP probably isn’t going to make Cumans insanely OP, but they should already be an upper tier TG pocket civ, with FU hussar and paladin, 2tc boom in feudal, Cuman Mercenaries, and now great Kipchaks.

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Afaik Mangudai and Kipchak have the same range of 4.

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Mongols get bracer, Cumans don’t.

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