Only two civs. out of 35 have the full eco tech tree and the Byzantines are one of them. If that’s not top-tier eco, I don’t know what is… The Mayans for instance lack gold shaft mining for their super-strong eco bonus. The Vikings lack stone shaft mining and guilds.
(Not to mention that the Byzantines save a lot on trash, which is a form of eco bonus, and going up to imp., so it’s not “just” full eco tech tree, they have some strong eco bonuses besides that as well).
Disagree. They need all their upgrades to be one of the strongest units in the game. They already start very strong (innate 12 anti-cav. armor for non-elite! Not to mention almost as much bonus damage against infantry as a hc or elite jaguar warrior).
You assume correctly. Just like the kipchak lost an arrow to regain it back later.
Not in one shot. Not even a Siege Onager shot. Besides, mangudai are usually associated with hussars (Cumans can do that as well) and “ferrari” siege (to use a T-West term), whereas the Cumans have the usual slow siege and lack SE, which is big, so it’s hard to associate that with the fast-moving cavalry.
Btw, micro won’t help against most ranged units, as the kipchak will usually be outranged. Outrange ballistics is possible, albeit very hard, but impossible with the high kipchak numbers needed to be effective.
That doesn’t change anything about Kipchaks being very expensive. Sure, they’re cheaper on gold; that’s a great bonus. They’re still far, far more expensive to upgrade than Paladin. Just because there’s less gold doesn’t mean it’s not still 5675 resources to upgrade. 5675! Correct me if I’m wrong, but that may just be the most expensive UU in the game. Aside from Elite War Elephant; I think it may be more than the new Cataphract.
Yes, it doesn’t cost nearly as much gold. It doesn’t mean it’s more affordable. You still need a huge amount of time to collect those resources, and that is a lot of food that’s not going into Heavy Cavalry production.
They’re not strong - they’re versatile. VERY versatile. They’re weaker vs Archers and Heavy Cavalry than Heavy Cavalry. For example; if you’re opponent is Ethiopians with top tier archers, or Franks/Lithuanians/Teutons, their composition is going to be pretty hard to fight.
The cataphract is strong in what it is specialized in. It’s specialized against infantry and it’s a beast right away.
Just like a huskarl is a strong unit. But pretty much just against archer fire. Even loses against a hussar, which would be kind of embarrassing, if he wasn’t so strong against archers and towers/castles.
I didn’t mean “strong” in the way of a “paladin”, which is specialized in nothing, but has great raw stats.
A cavalry archer costs more gold (and more total res.) to upgrade than a paladin. A kipchak costs less gold, but even more total resources than a cav. archer, which already costs more than a paladin (see ibid).
No one cares about late-game eco upgrades when it comes to deciding who has a good eco. For instance the Mongol eco is better than the Byzantine one because you can use their early boost to get a headstart, which is way more important than being able to get imperial eco techs.
And their eco is miiiiiileeees ahead of Byzantine. And anyway the shaft mining techs are among the lowest-priority eco techs you can think of.
Without elite they have 0 hope of standing a chance against archers and aren’t even doing well against bloodines knights, and without logistica generic cavaliers keep them in check easily.
If your opponent teched into onager of course they will have more than one.
??? Then what’s the point?
Still super expensive to get after upgrading your mangudai and hussars.
If only the Cuman had something that has cavalry speed, that can tank, and on which they could spend all the gold they save from making kipchaks and having a no gold elite upgrade.
What’s next, buff jaguar warriors not because they are too niche but because their castle has 0 building upgrades? Let’s buff Rattan archers cuz their castles only have hoardings?
It’s OK for an UU to fall of in Imp. Conqs for instance are like that too.
Except that unless the enemy is Goths or meso you likely won’t get to fight infantry anyway until they late game halb spam or go champs to counter your trash.
While I have to admit that there are in this thread some disagreements about why exactly the kipchak should be buffed, there’s luckily a widespread agreement about it in principle, or, at least, not many users believe the proposed buff would make the Cumans OP again (see for the whole The Cuman Kipchak - An Analysis).
Even though there are some different taints (better range, better RoF and/or better attack), the suggested buff consists essentially of +1 atk to the elite kipchak.
Even with this buff, the kipchak will still fail to reach his damage output of last november, when he had a RoF of 1,8 (see The Cuman Kipchak - An Analysis).
Just like the kipchak lost an arrow to regain it back later.