Persians are pretty strong. Id say their problem is that they need to go FC into at least 2 TCs to get any real use out of their eco bonus.
I think they should move Persian team bonus to a civ bonus +1/+2/+3 atk against archers for all stable units.
Then add them some relatively useless team bonus, like making outposts 50% cheaper or walls having extra LOS.
In my experience they are good for playing with cavalry, at least at the lower eloâs, despite the lack of any direct bonuses.
It starts with the extra resources in dark age, which makes it easier to pull off a clean 22 pop into scouts. It makes a lot of things easier to do clean, but given that a scout rush is often a race against pallisade walls it feels like this bonus is especially nice for that. The faster working feudal TC also sort of helps limit the economy damage of not going castle age faster, a bit.
In early castle age, the prescence of camels is really nice. Because thereâs no separate upgrade path you can freely mix knights and camels in any proportions you require without paying a dime more than for building a similar force of just knights. The bonus vs archers and the prescence of camels make it so youâre less tempted to support your cavalry army with skirmishers or pikemen but instead can go for crossbows. Crossbows are great against enemy pikes, allowing you to keep at least about half your army in cavalry form.
In late castle age or early imperial the trashbows come in. They are now no longer competitive as archers, missing the arbalest upgrade, but theyâre great as an anti-pike trash unit. Which is why youâre not going to be playing them as an archer civ, but as a cavalry civ with archer support. The war elephant can start coming in handy here as an improvised ram. Drop a castle and immediately go for a push rather than waiting for a siege workshop to come up. Itâs not super useful, as a single ram can feel as effective as several war elephants and the extra wood cost of dropping a siege workshop is usually the easiest kind of cost to pay at this point, but itâs an option.
As you start shifting towards trash you can still stay in cavalry. Hussars are always nice, and you can supplement with elephants. They cost only as much gold as a knight, and are essentially a low gold option. Donât even worry about the elite upgrade being expensive. A funny side effect of the way aoe2 works is that expensive units with high stats are much less vulnerable to having a point of this or that more or less. As you already got all the blacksmith upgrades for your knight, camel and scout lines castle age style war elephants are fine here. The unique tech that speeds the elephants up is probably a better buy than elite at this point. And when the opponent fields monks you have an army of hussars and crossbows for that.
Is this game plan competitive? Would a pro player agree this is a cavalry civ? Donât know. But from a low elo perspective it checks out. The extra resources, the anti-archer bonus, the unique unit, both unique technologies and the availability of three fully upgradable stable lines all contribute to a cavalry based play style.
Knights and Camel riders cost -15 food
Cavaliers and Heavy Camel riders cost -30 food
Paladins cost -45 food
This is specially balanced because if you are going Paladins, food shouldnât be a problem at that stage of the game.
Also the food cost of the War Elephants be decreased while increasing their gold cost by 5.
Itâs already been mentioned once, but the faster working TCs also factors into Persians being a cav civ.
The only viable core units are archers and cavalry, and getting more villagers matters less when going for archers.
As a result any civ with a bonus that helps them get more villages and FU Paladin (or equivalent) is a cavalry civ.
I just want boiling oil tech back and add another unique unit called Hashashin for Persians.
Ok @Equalizer938341 I really think that you just donât like the way the Persian are made a cavalry civ. And thatâs fine! You donât need to like all civs with a âcavalryâ tag slapped on them just because you like cavalry in general. If you like civs that give a big straightforward bonus on their cav units, then play those.
OOH, next cavalry civ should haveâŠ
a unique tech that reduces cavalry cost by 20%
a bonus that gives their cavalry +1 attack per age starting in castle age
and a unique tech that gives their cavalry piercing damage.
totally fair and balanced right?
Man it is not about straightforward bonus or not. As i said the thing is that they donât have anything special for their cavs not even a UT for cavs too.
+2 attack vs archers, the only civ with fully upgraded HC, Hussar, and Paladins.
Man this bonus is meh
They have a cav UU. And no itâs not as useless as you claim, there are situations like TG or close maps where itâs very good.
They have the most complete cavalry tech tree out of all civs.
Trashbows are the best support unit you could wish for when going cav.
They literally have a TB for cav.
Thatâs 4 special aspects of their cav, even if itâs not written in their stats. Not everything has to be noticeable by smashing units against each other in the scenario editor.
yeah man being able to kill archers 1 attack sooner then other civs is a bad bonus.
But Knights already doing well against archers so it is not a unique thing to have more bonus attacka vs archers, if it was like a more bonus attack vs other knights/pikes maybe it will be ok, and still not that big deal
Their UU is the most useless UU in the game. It is too slow, too expensive, hard to mass, easy to convert by monks and it is so hard to see 200f/75g being converted and see it in your enemy side at least give it a bonus conversion resistance or reduce itâs food cost.
About other things, again they donât have anything special for their cavs and this attack vs archers is meh
Of course you donât go straight for war eles in castle age. Thatâs why you have to wait for the late game when monks are harder to use.
Ok since the tech tree of a civ seemingly doesnât count imma predict what has to be done next:
âMalay arenât a naval civ, they donât have anything special for their shipsâ
âChinese arenât an archer civ, they have nothing special for their archers and their UU is useless the enemy just has to make onagersâ
âHuns arenât a cavalry civ their cav as nothing specialâ
âCuman arenât a cav civ +5% speed is mehâ
Feel free to complete if I missed anything
No, your examples are too weak comparing to the Persian one, every civ that you mentioned have something special for their identity
Persian do as well, but for some reason you think it doesnât count.
Are you crazy? This would
-make persian castle age a lot stronger
-make their transition to paladin (the upgrade is an insane 1.3k food) a lot easier
-Insanly buff persians on maps that have a lot of gold, like golden pit
-completly break persians in teamgame lategame, where gold is always available.
And why would you even buff persians? They are a bit weak on open land maps, but still a very strong pick on any hybrid map. They are very much fine and dont need buffs.
Having the best trash support for cav, a bonus vs one of the most important MUs KTs can get into, an eco bonus that focuses on high food economy and a full upgraded stable doesnât count? Well then what does, actually?
Franks arnât a cav civ, their kts are just generic, they dont get camels nor hussar (and their lcav is even worse than generic), all they get is +4 HP in chev (and +12 on paladin, but 1v1 hardly ever gets to this). Oh yeah they get +2 SIGHT on kts, how very usefull.
Slaw arnât a cav civ, only get a meh UU and nothing else.
Cuman arnât a cav civ, who cares about 5% speed and a 4th stable unit?
Teuton arnât a cav civ, yeah their pala get melee armor, doesnât help them vs pikes/archers at all, but they even lack husbandry. On top of that, they are the only civ without lcav, what a joke.
See? By just ignoring/dismissing everything thats good about a civs cav and focussing on the weak part no civ is a cav civ.
Hey bro, i know that in general the Perisan are not bad, i am just saying that their identity as a cav civ dooenât have anythig special for their knights, i know the civ in general is good but they need something for their cavs better than WOW 2 attack bonus vs archers and useless UU