Watching games of professional players on Twitch, YouTube and in tournaments I have realized that when they use the civilization of the Aztecs they never make use of the jaguar warrior in their games, and they have even commented that it is not viable to use them. This military unit came out together with the first expansion that the original game had in 2000 and for many it brings back memories when we played the Moctezuma campaign (which I think is the only place where it is used), but I think in the following patches developers should make them more viable so that this unit has an appearance in the competitive scene and even in multiplayer games more frequently, because I think that this unit should not fall into oblivion and be only decorative in the castle of the branch of Aztec technologies, I think that military unit should be used more often.
The jaguar warrior is supposed to be an anti-infantry unit so it should be very viable against that type of unit, but in a very recent game of the player Hera (10/21/2021) playing with the Goths he was able to face it with the Longsword to the jaguar warriors (remembering that the longsword had an improvement in the recent patch) so I think that the jaguar warriors also need an improvement to make them really viable against the unit with which they are special to fight.
Fighting the Goths on their own terrain (infantry) is risky to say the least. Especially in the castle age, with the Goths not suffering yet from the lack of the third infantry armour while the Aztecs didn’t have Garland Wars yet.
Looking at their stats, maybe having only 50 hp in the castle age is too low and should be buffed to 60.
Yeah, actually most of the inf UUs should get an overhaul. Not just jags. But jags are a very good unit to begin with. I would also propose to give the jags a bit resistance to bonus damage, so they are equally matched with eg samurai and can also survive a bit of HC fire.
More speed, more health, more bonus damage, some armor class bonusses, less training time.
Nevertheless Aztecs infantry is actually fine even without the jag. Most other civs melee units have a hard time against aztecs infantry.
At best castle age jags should be buffed but the real problem with castle age jags is requiring a castle to make which makes them unlikely to be massable
it is literally designed for a single use… killing infantry… so it shouldnt be remotely a risky business, it should almost definitely force a transition from the opponent, even if they’re goths…
its not like its good at anything else (for example the cataphract is decent vs camels as well or the skirmisher can fight pikes and archers)
probably a good idea? although aztecs are still an incredibly strong civ… so imo i would only buff the jags anti infantry damage. nothing else for fear of buffing an already s tier civ…
and finally other civs/units are in much more need of a buff than the “lowly” jag…
I play a lot the Aztecs, and by being sort of ~mid elo, in team games mainly, I assure you somehow I always find a way to make Jaguar Warriors.
They’re like a champion, but better (but requires castle to make), they counter trash, they have 12 + 8 attack, and they have +10 bonus against infantry, which REKT anyone that would go dare going trash or infantry.
That said, indeed age3 Jaguar Warrior are not that strong, but I believe it’s by design. Age3 infantry used to be weak, on purpose, compare to mounted units, or archers.
It starts to be different with the arrival of Serjents, and the Obuchs, low cost for Food and Gold, amazing defensive stats, correct damage output.
But keep in mind Aztecs are very versitile, despite not having access to cavalry :
+11% military unit creation everywhere means you will always have a time advantage to your opponent, and is really good for siege,
+50 golds means a good DRUSH or a good Archery opener, villager carrying
+3 means great food eco with farms,
+5monk hp means they can easily take a mangonel/onager shot (even the Siege Onager), but I do admit it’s hard to success with the deadly combo Monk + Siege
+33% gold per relic is very great for your teams or for yourself
their Skirmisher have +1 more attack and +1 more range, for a total of 5+4 range, which is extremely strong, especially for lategame when gold runs out.
+4 attack for all infantry strong enough to be a threat, even a small Pikeman can be deadly, but more especially their Eagles Warriors.
That means, if they indeed give a buff you wish for, if not well handled that can lead to an even harder nerf, and I doubt that’s what you want.
I do believe it’s possible to buff without impacting the strength of a civ, but it’s nice to have a multiple variety of choice : reducing the food cost of the Jaguar Warrior => why would you make Champions then ?
They’ve already reduced by almost 50% the training time of the Jaguar Warrior, an that’s amazing, but in age3, they’re way far from being cost efficient, and due to their high cost they’re hard to mass. Their strength come to mass.
One other point is also that jags actually are more gold intensive than the units they are designed to “counter”. That makes them especially weird to use.
Complaining about an unit that only has a purpose and aztecs normally end games before even castles are up. plus they have 21 attack champion in imperial.
Jaguars are really useless yes it clearly need something, i like the idea of anti bonus damage proposed before but i don’t think it will be enough, even for contering champion they are not really goot at this job.
The jaguar needs 4 hits to kill a longsword, the longsword needs 7 (75% more). However you can field 60% (Lanchester’s Square Law : +156%) more gothic longswords for the same resources, the numerical advantage overwhelms the jaguars.
Against a generic civ though, the jaguar easily wins.
The champion needs 7 hits, the jaguar needs 3 (133% more), while you can field 70% more gothic infantry (LSL : +189%). After some quick tests, the Goths would really need taking advantage of their numbers to take the edge, if some of their numbers don’t fight because they are in the second line the jaguars win. There’s still the issue of producing enough troops though.
Unless you’re limited by population, avoid fighting fire with fire when the Goths use infantry…
Not by much. 33% of their cost is gold, as opposed to 25% for a gothic longsword or 31% for a FU generic one. It doesn’t matter in the castle age anyway.
It would be a poor choice when fighting the Franks for example, however you would expect an anti-infantry unit to work wonders against the Goths who mainly rely on that. I recently played a game as the Byzantines against the Goths, it was a cataphract stomp fest.
Well i think that the idea of buffing jaguar warrior is to make them more visible in more games, because the problem is that people don’t use them because they are not viable in the most, in contrast with other unique units in the game. I think that this unit is a little bit abandoned and i believe with a little help it could be significatly good to see more in professional games and tournaments. Maybe it would be interesting this idea:
Using a single example to back up your argument is kinda shaky. You can likewise find games where jags were the play or where ignoring them led to defeat (like Hera in RBW3 who got overrun by berserks because he spent ages trying to get to champs). You also have to bear in mind that their bad reputation is sticking to them so it helps with people underestimating them.
I don’t think we underestimate them. They just barely win against the units they should counter hard.
But you need castles and they train quite slow as a unit designed to stop a infantry “flood”.
That’s why I think, the bonus damage should be increased so they can indeed perform better against the unit they are designed to counter. (I wouldn’t mind if in the exchange the normal attack would be lowered a bit).
But training time reduction is also a must, like the same level as obuch should be fine. 11 secs for a infantry unit in a castle is just too much.
But they still counter champion from best infantry civs like Japanese, Goths, with equal resource. Isn’t that enough? Also their training time was buffed one year ago and I think current 11 sec is okay.
Imperial age version is fine. I see they used occasionally on Arena against certain matchup (vs Flemish militia, Slavs etc.). But I think castle age version need slight buff to match the latest longsword buff.
-20 isn’t countering, it’s almost equal. -20 % can easily be set of by just 5 % more units.
And you need castles against a spammable barrack unit. Plus your units also train comparably slow for a castle infantry unit.
