I guess Mongols are one of the most played civ in AOE2 DE and after you play this civ, you just like them. When somebody ask me which civ you have to play against most, that is exactly Mongols.
Strength:
Very fast early game because of the hunt bonus and you can go faster to Feudal and then faster Castle Age to going on boom your eco. Or you can go light cav to raid your enemy in the Feudal asap. Even if you cav survive in castle age your light cav will get extra HP.
Fast siege units in the late game. You can have fast siege onagers or rush your enemy with fast siege rams. That’s amazing.
But the most common reason for playing Mongols is indeed to play with Mangudais!
Why?
Mangudais are one of the fastest unit in the game! You can play Hit-and-Run easily.
Mangudais are fast firing unit. You can fire your arrows incredibly fast. (not like standard cav archer)
At the start of your production you don’t need many of them (5-6 units) to annoy your enemy and destroying their eco in castle age. Mangudai survive because you can run away from the Knights or skirms.
In post Imp you can mass your number and they can even win the fight against huge number of Paladins. (See tournament game Hera against Mr.Yo best example) Archer should not win fights against Paladins!
One of the best defensive game style is possible. Magudai do extra damage against siege units! No rams or Tribuchet can destroy your castle. You can hit and run away!
So what is their weekness?
Skrims - what else - but you can run away for trash them with light cav. They have extra HP.
Onagers - but you micro and do extra damage.
Tanky units like Paladins - but if you are clever you can even win the fight only with Mangudais. And Mangudais are cheaper.
You can beat Huskarl if not too many of them - so not the worst option.
But Mamelukes are hard counter to Mangudais? Yes that true but they are much more expensive and not everyone likes to play with Saracens.
For me and not only me, Mangudai is the best unit, the best unique unit in the game.
How to nerf the Mangudai?
I think it is quite ridiculous that they do insane damage to siege units.
Instead of extra damage to siege units - only extra damage to rams. Harder to fight against tribuchet and onagers!
2 Mangudai, - 3 Elite Mangudai Attack v siege units
Base Movement 1.45 to 1.3
raise costs 55W 65G To 60W 75G (harder to mass and it’s fair because they are really strong)
And no I don’t think nerf of Mongols would make them to a bad civ.
Maybe at the right time general buff of Stepp Lancer (really needed) would compensate the nerf of the already one of the strongest civ.
lmao yes lets make them slower than a knight.
And they’re already the most expensive cav archer. And it takes almost half a minute to train one and need castles to produce from. Massing them is already hard and time consuming
Yes it would. Mangudai acts like a civ bonus because their eco after feudal is nothing special. Nerf Drill rams and Mangudai and they become very mediocre. And Steppe lancer buff won’t do Mongols any good because they lack plate barding and don’t mention the HP, it does not make up for it.
The devs should fix pathing first
They are too strong and does not have many (no) weekness?
The fight was a good example they win the fight against Paladin. That is not the first time I’ve seen they win the fight. That should not happen!
Of course you can lose even with Mongols but only if the enemy has better strategy. Like everyone knows Mongols you will play against Mangudai. Like Mongols does not have other option to play with.
Imo mongols got the biggest nerf among all top vanilla civs from FE… recently they have nerfed the hunt bonus. I did not like that… no need to another mongol nerf.
Coming from the pro player that says arbs counter eagle warriors and goths are weak in the imperial age
I don’t agree to the full extent with OP. But we all know mangudai are literally like one of the best units in the game, (and almighty viper rates them s tier as well) and other units could do with some love to make them that effective…
Compare how much a mangudai is used per match compared to any other UU nevermind throwing axemen, TK and jaguars
mangudai are also insanely expensive to train, take a lot of time to train, and mongols don’t really have any solid eco bonuses past the dark age.
also. Mongols are literally carried by Mangudai, whereas other civs are not carried by their UU.
if Mangudai was another average unique unit, mongols would be a subpar civilization.
and each of those civs have a better winrate then Mongols despite having subpar UU.
Imagine how much they would have to be nerfed to have a UU as good as Mangudai.
Compare the win rate of those civs, to the Mongols.
Coming from the man that said that Halberdiers, Cavaliers and Paladins literally make or break a civ, but could not explain why Aztecs usually have higher winrates than Cumans, and see more tournament play…
Heck, Saracens are amogst the Top 5 civs right now, and have none of those either!
I never said anything about not nerfing or buffing the rest of the civ… And yes the mangudai has those drae backs but you cannot deny how much it is used) We have a lot of people complaining about very vanilla soup fighta (archers and knights) partly because certain UU units are simply not as effective… Forgot to add the samurai to that list.
Perfect balance would mean all UU are equally viable, not in every match, but at least usable often,while at the same time not having such a discrepancy between bottom civ (porto etc) and top civ
no offense, but i ain’t putting a lot of stock in 1650+ right now. too few games.
well yeah, they are used. they literally carry the civ.
okay, so go ahead and nerf those civs hard enough that you make their infantry UU top tier and carry their civs.
Franks - lets see.
Chivalry gone. Farm Bonus Gone. Cheap Castles, Gone.
Aztecs - Villager carry bonus nerfed or removed. Production bonus gutted further, probably lose Arbs.
Teutons - oh god. i can’t even imagine all the nerfs they would require.
Mangudai have been nerfed before in a HD period. The removed the siege attack bonus or changed it to only affect rams or something. Also the frame delay was higher for some time.
Apparently that must have broken the unit. Not sure but we are here and those nerfs got mostly reverted.
The developers must have thought the same way as op back then and decided it didn’t work. I would like to see a slight nerf again, either movement speed or frame delay.
As I explained, they can defend their castle very well and hard to lose their castle. And no Mongols would built his first castle next to enemy base.
What a stupid joke not to nerf a S-tier unit, the best unit in the whole game. The carry the Mongols like there is no other option to play. How about buff the stepp Lancer instead, make more sense and I’m sure they will be buff and then a good time to make Mangudai to A-tier.
