The main and real reasons of why and how Gurjaras are strong and why their design is so powerful

Hello everyone!

I want here to discuss with you, why imo the Gurjaras are so powerful and why it is hard to deal with them.

Many people think, because it is their camel bonus, or becasue of their Shirvamsha riders, or because their UU, or because their eco.

How do you feel when I tell you none of these what make them strong?!

I will explain why and how they work.

Gurjaras is that civ who have 2 mobile counter units that can be created from the same building, and those 2 units counter the 2 main units in the game; the knight line and the archer line. Now what does this mean? Many things.

First: You need less upgrades because you can counter 2 types of units from the same building (stable), which means you wilk have more flexibility and more resources.

2nd: The great mobility, you have a great mobility over anyone for 2 units counter the 2 main lines of units in the game.

3rd: The faster and bigger army impact and that force the other played to go counters and lose many advantages. What is this how?!

Gurjaras can make camels in feudal, which means the cav player doesn’t even think of going cavs nor scout play and if so it will cost a lot. While going up, the cav player can’t make knights! But the Gurjaras player can make camels and he will always have the numbers advantage! So the knight play powerspike in early castle age vs Camels is not even an option which will force the cav player to go MAA archers then xbows most of the time which is not in his advantage anyway. Forcing the opponent to go counters means that you have the upper hand most of the time that yoou forced him to throw his strength points and go counters.

4th: The cheap army combenation. A unit that cost 70f, 20g counter archers and have low training time, and unit cost 55F, 60g and can be massed in feudal that counter cavs and have low training time too especially with their team bonus (camels created 25% faster). Both of these 2 units counter the main lines. They have too a UT that make their food eco cheaper.

5th: The good eco. Sheep in the mill (safe eco). Bushes under the tc (safe eco). Fishing ships can garrison in docks (safe eco).

6th: A good UU that counter the counters of their units and good UTs.

So the thing is, it is not about what they have units/bonuses indivisualy, but about how every bonus and every unit work together in a perfect shape and style.

IMO the civ balance can’t work indivisualy more than how it maybe need a redesign. I might even won’t be exaggerating if I say that they should lose the camel scout ability making in feudal, just keep their initial camel in dark.

The civ need a deep rework/redesign.

Many greetings

9 Likes

One thing here: Gurjaras are OP because the combination of all those things (great and clean dark age, great feudal age eco and good timings thanks to the sheeps bonus, insane castle age with both units able to counter cavalry and archers, and armored eles that are OP too, and also a super strong imperial age with all the already mentioned + the nasty UU they have).

I already suggested many ways to nerf Gurjaras properly, but what about this:

  • Replace the 40% more bonus damage of mounted units for Camel Riders and Elephant Archers get +2 melee armor in castle age and another +2 in Imperial (essentially making Frontier guards as civ bonus). Move the 40% bonus damage to the UT (So they still can get super strong camels and armored eles, but only in imperial where ther are more counterplay options). Also that change will motivate gurjara players to start using the elephant archer more.
1 Like

This is also why I think Hindustanis are not too overtuned, because every unit needs their respective upgrades and none of them translate to another unit line (infantry, camels, HC/CA)

6 Likes

they are always going to be overpowered on any map where you can make a mill first with zero consequence. the civ isn’t broken because a standard RM map has fish, but being able to only choose that civ when you know the map will have no fish is too strong

you can always push deer to make up for lack of sheep, and the maps are too predictable, so there’s zero punishment for pushing deer instead of scouting

that is where most of the DE balance problems come from. all the civs with subtle economy bonuses (franks, gurjaras, mayans) dominate empty land maps, but they aren’t actually overpowered on the true competitive maps. but people get to cheese the game by only picking franks/gurjaras on land-only maps and never have to play them on maps where they aren’t overpowered

The mounted bonus damage for Gurjaras is the less problematic thing in their play. It doesn’t need more nerfs at all. As I said the problem more with how the whole civ units and bonuses work well together. It is a powerful design. At least Shivras need to be more expensive and imo they should lose the ability to make camels in feudal.

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No

civs that need a rework long before them are the unplayed civs like Malay or portuguese or ones that create polarising matchups like Burmese(fits both criteria), goths or Britons. Nevermind obvious ones like drav and beng

Gurj just need tweaking to reduce their level of OP. But the actual civ design is clever because it makes for unique play with a variety of changes

5 Likes

No, is among the most problematic things they have, especially in castle age, the bonus on camels is soo high that you just can’t even bring cavalry vs them, and the bonus on armored eles is broken.
The upcoming nerf just adress it by barely 1 hit XD

4 Likes

Let me give you another reason: the counter units they make can destroy your eco and are hard to counter. Unlike skirms and pikes which are weak against vils and can be easily destroyed by tc and mangonel or scorpion, camels and(especially) Shirvamshas kill vils very quickly. The only way to counter them is infantry combo, but you lose mobility and can be countered by the UU.

3 Likes

Nerfing it further would make the bonus very mediocre in castle age lol. It would be almost like having their cameks attack 10% faster. As it is your camels are already worse than Hindu ones in castle age I believr

I agree, can try. SRider needs to be close to a knight i would say in total cost. And i do feel melee range damage with pass through effect is too strong for Chakrams make it Pierce. It is like scorp doing melee damage.
Also the mill garrisoning bonus is too strong there should be some penalty for that. Maybe lock it behind loom tech? Or maybe a dark age tech in mill - if you want to garrison your sheep pay the price for tech.

Mounted bonus damage can stay but no camels in feudal that’s too powerful when massed and combined with SRider in castle age.

Just put the speed in line with Light cav/Hussar for starters, no need to overnerf.
Why is anyone always obsessed with gigantic nerfs when it’s clear that gigantic nerfs are really bad.
We don’t need another steppe lancer.

5 Likes

I fully agree. :+1:t2:
Not gigantic but Gurj do need some tuning down either the economy OR the military. Right now it’s so well tuned it’s hard to beat them. Everybody says SRider should be heavily nerfed but my guess is Gurj will still maintain high win rate without it. So let unique unit remain as it is either move the cost up, not much may be try in very small packets or tune down the eco a bit - the mill.
And if i have to pick i would pick mill bonus that seems super powerful in dark age. I haven’t played Gurj. Played against them - mostly with my infantry then they are not OP but still hold their own with Chakrams. They have a early good eco - makes them versatile.

2 Likes

One way to help mitigate the anti-calary dominance would be to change the bonus to per age, and maybe scale it too. So the mounted bonus becomes +10% feudal, +20% castle, +30% imperial?
I do think 40% is a bit overkill but I’m not a developer. Given their history, this means I’m probably right.

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And chakran thrower is just too OP. they are quite fast too. it should either do pass through damage or melee damage. not both. now its like Thor’s hammer God tier.

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so basically a gbeto?