Tughlaq Dynasty

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
44

The population increase for units needs to be handled with caution.

At least the only units with comparable population power levels are the Gilded versions of the Order of the Dragon and the War Elephants.

- Knights.- Regular knights, for example, should cost 1 population.

- Cataphracts.- However, cataphracts are as overpowered as Gilded Knights, they should perhaps cost 2 population each.

- Ridari.- This one is curious: it lacks a charge attack, but it compensates with higher attack stats and HP. Cost the same as Knights in convertion cost. What truly makes them overpowered is that the mechanics of the Varangian Arsenal allow them to have +3/+3 armor and +15% HP in Castle Age (III). Technically they are as strong as French knights with Early Royal Staples Tech. Maybe, their base attack could perhaps be reduced slightly, but I don’t think it requires more population.

- Mangudais.- They are very difficult to kill in the Post-Imperial era, and yes, more ways to counter them should be considered. In the Feudal era, they can be countered with more archers, but in the Post-Imperial era, no; generally, you need either many Mangonels and some units that act as bullet cushions (Knights, Horsemen).

→ Historically, the counter to horse archers has always been foot archers. Age of Empires III knew this, and that’s why that’s their counter. Consider giving Foot Archers an extra bonus against horse archers (+1/+2/+3/+4).

—> The other option would be to lower their HP, which is currently too high (II: 85 III: 105 IV: 120), considering that other horse archers have less HP, such as the Rus Horse Archer (III: 85 IV: 100) or the Onna Musha (III: 80, IV: 95).

- Camel Archer: This is theoretically a living tank, and in the game, it’s represented as a “support” unit that also attacks at range. Its HP in the Feudal Age is so high and increases so much over time (II: 150, III: 175, IV: 200) that I think it should cost 2 population. However, if it’s going to cost 2 population, they could increase its HP a little.

2 Likes
45

Tughlaq is in trouble…

The larger the fight the worse their population efficiency gets. And give all their core units are countered by crossbows and spears they need sooooo much support (archers and crossbows), that they don’t have the pop space. Unlike the passive resource civs, Tughlaq needs villagers and a lot of them??!!!

Just for Tughlaq I’d reduce all their elephant’s population requirements by 1.

Raiders 1

Healers 2

War 2

Ballista 2.

As is, ignoring the exoberate cost…. 15 raiders 20 archers 20 spears 2 war 3 healers, 3 ballista and 2 mango cost is 100 population?? Switch this with any other civ and it’s a non issue :confused:??

A different idea for addressing this would be if Tughlaq starts off the game with +10 population cap at the very beginning of the game and make the capital town center support an additional 10 population so tughlaq benefits immediately from this perk. Then in imp make a governor or a pricy pricy university tech that grants +20 more population cap for a total of 230 population cap?

OTD doesn’t suffer this issue as badly bc all their units are strong so their support units easily protect their pricy meat shield Frontline units, plus none of the unique roster to OTD cost 3 population??? Delhi doesn’t supper this bc only their elephants are population inefficient and all their support units get unique strong benefits to support the Frontline.

Tughlaq only has the costly Ballista Elephant as the only range unit with benefits to range attack and those perks only create new kill breakpoints vs melee infantry.

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Raider Elephant costs 2 space because of their stats in Imperial. It’s basically a way to keep them powerful in Feudal, Castle while keeping them under control in Imperial.

But, I agree. They shouldn’t cost 2. Personally, they’re a tad bit too close to being 2 horseman glued together.

1 Like
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Let’s summarize.

  1. Nerf Healer :elephant: HP from 450 to 350 in feudal. Nerf Healer elephant healing in combat to 80% of current capacity in feudal. Increase Healer Elephant walk speed from 1.0 to 1.125
  2. Move Raider Elephant +1 melee armor down from castle into feudal.
  3. Fix Trample animation lock issue. EITHER grant a significant speed boost, aka 10s of 0.31 additional movement speed or just get rid of the animation lock all together.
  4. Increase Ballista Elephant bonus damage from +12 to +20. Increase Ballista Elephant range from 7.5 to 8. Increase House of Learning Collateral damage from plus +30% bonus to +40% bonus. Increase Ballista range armor from +2 to +8.

Now for the rationale.

  1. Healer elephants are oppressive in feudal. Lower the HP and healing will help alleviate the struggle and hopefully encourage more unit diversity.
  2. Raider elephants cost 2 pop yet they die 2 spear strikes faster than 2 horseman and 1 strike faster than gilded horseman?? Giving them the +1 melee armor in feudal actually does NOT change their spear killing break, alone, BUT it allows the first tier of the cav HP governor to now actually do something relevant!! The combination of the 2 (+1 melee armor and 1st tier cav HP) increases the feudal spear killing breakpoint by 1 (from 8 strikes to 9, just how the gilded horseman already enjoys with no added gimmicks).
  3. Trample I’ve talked about at length… no other unit with a big button to push suffers animation lock especially not 1 second long?? If we must suffer the penalty we need a bigger reward. AND this unit screams at the top of it’s lungs with the ability is activated further altering the enemy…..so they run away at the sound (lame….knight sipahi etc if it’s a single or very few units charge in quietly).
  4. Gonna make a complete separate entry for this explanation. I hinted at it in an earlier post but essentially the benefit to cost has zero meaningful advantages over a standard springald. This would help close the gap in performance and not have this unit becoming an all purpose killing unit by putting the high dmg in it’s bonus!
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Deeper dive/explanation to suggested Ballista Elephant changes.

Ballista cost 650 resources and requires 45s train time. Compare that to a springald that cost 250 resources and takes 20s to train. DPS wise a single ballista kills a standard maa 1 volley faster (from 8 down to 7) otherwise without collateral damage bonus from house of Learning , all kill strike breakpoints are the same vs standard infantry. Si for 2.6 times more cost you meaningful DPS advantage can be noted, bc a standard civ can que 2 springalds in less time and with less resources and virtually cut ALL kill breakpoints in half??! My suggestion would continue to allow 2 springalds to outDPS 1 Ballista, however the comparison would now be 2 springs (500 res 40s train time) kills a maa in 4 volleys vs 1 Ballista (650 res 45s train time) kills a maa in 5 volleys!! Next the 40% bonus collateral damage reduces the kill breakpoint for Ballista vs maa down to 4!! Same analysis vs vet spearman. 2 springalds kill 1 vet spearman in 2 volleys. And 1 Ballista would require 3 volleys (collateral damage doesn’t change this kill breakpoint).

Now the above was just DPS and the suggested changes would only net positive changes vs units the Ballista is designed to counter! Next is how much damage can the unit absorb compared to springs.

Off the :ping_pong:!! Crossbows kill a Ballista in 24 volleys meanwhile they kill 1 springald in 18… THIS I just don’t understand? Kill breakpoint doesn’t have to be double but this cant be right? Keep the heavy tag…. But up the range armor to 7 or 8, this would change the kill breakpoint from 24… to 30,31 and this would actually net a mid size castle/imp fight efficiency advantage to this unit given the enemy range mass around that time isn’t likely to be 30+, so that’s 2 or more focus fire volleys at this higher breakpoint.

Now Ballista outperform a spring cost for cost at absorbing archer damage. But why would the enemy NOT have crossbows when all your unique units, minus one, are countered by crossbows? Next Ballista cost for cost absorb more damage from all standard melee units with spears being the only exception. I think this is fair especially given how susceptible this unit is to being efficiently sniped by focus fire compared multiple target low HP springalds.

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Compound of the Defender for Tughlaq Dynasty is extremely underwhelming…

Delhi’s version gives the 20% discount and reduces the stone cost of emplacements. This is significant for Delhi b/c Keeps cost 900stone and Keeps double as TC’s for Delhi so the synergy and saving is there.

But for TugD?? The forts only cost 425 originally, so 20% on that is 85 stone? Even if you slapped down 6 keeps that’s only 510 stone saved? Yes the TugD version also gives access to the 4th tier Fort upgrade, but everything is extremely expensive so it very much differred benefits?

Edit(11/29/2025)

In order to get a Fort that is at min. as strong as a standard Keep you have to spend 425 stone (build), 350 stone (first upgrade 30s) and 350 stone 100 gold (2nd upgrade 60s?); you have to spend 1225 resources? Even with the Compound savings you still spend 1140 resources? Mind you tier 3 fort has LESS dps than a standard KEEP: Fort 14x4 arrows per 1 sec; Standard Keep 12x3 arrows per 0.5s. Forts have no boiling oil, and the 30% attacker debuff doesn’t work on some units like Japanese units???

If the Compound of the Defender discount applied to emplacements the way it does for Delhi; then you’d have a tier 3 Fort cost 900 stone 100 gold! Now this is a bonus, b/c the perk u unlocked only cost effectively 100 gold.

fix to Compound of Defender… either give them emplacement discounts OR…. make the 4th tier FREE and instant research!! This way (assuming u went fort before castle, you could potentially get the 4th tier immediately and have it be actually momentum building)!!

50

TOV Raider Elephants are the best raiders in the game, better than French knights JUST at raiding.

This is the one of 3 units in the game that if a single one of them is in your woodline or gold mine, you just RUN AWAY!!

TEXTILE is mandatory vs these units. In feudal they have 18 base damage, if your vils have 75 HP, a Raider Elephant would have to strike your villagers twice after executing a full duration of Trample (40 dmg….not 48….maybe a bug? But there is a 1 second animation lock that effectively reduce your effective trample time to 5 s). As opposed to a group of 5 standard HP vils running for their lives all getting trampled and reduced to 10 health each, then the Raider than just single tab one at a time along the way!!!

51

Is this a joke either they need to removed from feudal or they shouldnt heal each other.They can heal while moving if its %80 healing its still broken they still wont die.They need heal like 1 hp/sec at max in feudal.They have area damage too.

52

The Day they fix villager formation catch up speed, games will end so much faster bc raids from all civs will be crippling, especially raids from Raider Elephants!

Standard vil walk speed is 1.125 tiles per sec. Most gold/stone spawn 8 to 9 tiles from the TC. IF you exclude the villager catch up speed, it would require a vil +7.11s to travel 8+ tiles from exposed mine to inside the TC. A TOV Raider can execute 4 to 5 strikes inside 9 ish seconds which guarantees 1 killed vil if the enemy reacts after the initial charge

(Note: this assumes they fix the animation lock after a charge??? It’s ridiculous this unit has an animation lock after a charge??? @Croissantini had previously mentioned this glitch?? But I later went into a unit tester and verified that every other non elephant that has a standard charge mech does NOT have an animation lock after charging)

53

Healer Elephant’s buff from forts does not apply to bonus damage. Neither does the Collateral tech from House of Wisdom apply to the Spearman on War Elephant.

1 Like
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  • Healer Elephant mounted Imam healing reduced from 7 to 5 health per second.

    1. Healer Elephant health reduced from 450 to 400.
    2. Elite Healer Elephant upgrade armor reduced from +3/4 to +2/3.

We’re Healer Elephants a problem out of feudal??? Next are Healer Elephants NOT subjected to in-combat healing nerf? have they been healing at full strength in and out of combat??

    1. Raider Elephant cost reduced from 200 Food 40 Wood to 180 Food 40 Wood.
    2. Tower of Victory bonus increased from 15% to 20%.
    3. Tughlaqabad Fort cost decreased from 425 to 400 Stone.
    4. Tughlaqabad Fort Tier 1 upgrade cost reduced from 350 to 275 Stone
    5. Tughlaqabad Fort Tier 2 upgrade cost reduced from 350 to 300 Stone.

Ty!! Raiders got a mini buff, TOV at 20% is significant, before even testing it I’m gonna venture to say a TOV Raider can kill an early royal knight!! Now fort STONE cost are comparable to a keep 975 stone vs 900 stone.

Lastly, I’m hoping maybe some other bugs and gimmicks were addressed but not mentioned?:face_with_peeking_eye: Like collateral damage, like Raider Elephants being animation locked immediately after a charge unlike any other non elephant standard charging unit.