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.

46

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
47

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!
48

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.

49

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.

2 Likes
54

  • 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.

55

Healer Elephants in feudal I think is deadage!

TOV new META. TOV War Elephants are insane.

TOV RAider Elephants with the 1.85 attack speed are also insane and the cost reduction makes them come out just a touch faster; i’m able to put 5 on age up, 4 on building a stable an still be able to afford CONSTANT production?!

TOV Raiders cost for cost are just as efficient as standard horseman in all but 1 area!!! But also TOV raiders are better than horseman in many matchups!!

HP per cost, raiders are a touch better than standard horseman (raider HP/RES 1.068 vs horseman HP/RES 1.041) . Likewise with base DPS and bonus DPS per cost, 44.2/1000 VS 42.8/1000.

HORSEMAN best Raider Elephant vs spears since elephants take additional damage from spears. Also vs cannons bc again Elephants incur malice from those as well. However in most other matches, aka vs knights maa etc etc, strikes absorbed per cost is better for Raider elephants, also train time per cost is extremely better for Raider Elephants. Lastly Trample, despite the animation lock is more DPS and allows raiders to flank mid fight!!

Biggest take away I believe is a TOV castle raider with tier2 cav HP can outright kill a castle French royal knight with all its non royal institute upgrades??!

1 Like
56

VS most boom civs and some of the aggro civs even

Fast TOV Raider harrassment into fort drop is….unstoppable….

I’ve been nonstop forcing TOV way before the patch released yesterday and mostly lost with a 48% win rate mainly doing TOV stuff… patch releases; same exact TOV FORT playstyle and I went up 200 elo from last night to tonight!

Just a matter of time before ppl catch on this faster French like harrasment playstyle!

57

This past weekend tughlaq of all the new variant civs got probably the most play and with decent success. I personally loved to see the pros starting to appreciate the Raider Elephant potential! Granted they aren’t one trick :horse: ‘ing like me, so it’s unlikely they’ve had the chance to discover how many more micro mechanics haven’t been exploited with the raiders.

For example in a tughlaq vs Rus Wam vs Beasty game on Golden heights, Wam had 3? Raiders find a group of 12? Of beastys vil on a far from base berries…..and he killed 0 vils.. All 12 vills should have been dead and in the future, I can assure you ppl will catch on how to properly execute a raider elephant raid.

This is what Wam should have done with the 3 raiders. 1 of the 3 raiders should have charge towards the vils while 2 flank towards the escape route to block the villagers. The moment the charging elephant hits and alerts Beasty is the same moment the 2 flanking raiders will activate their trample abilities. Now let the 1 elephant that charge freely attack the vils from behind meanwhile to 2 that activated trample JUST MOVE to keep them exactly on top of the bunch!!! After the 2 tramples expire, the 2 front elephants will now be able to body block and clean up whatever vils left Alive!! Also when you get Mahouts (elephants speed), this maneuver is unstoppable even if they attempt to abuse villager formation speed up since trample negates collision and at 1.76 speed you’re about as fast as the 40%? formation speed boost villagers get.

58

The GOAT ML had a complaint, that I also mentioned earlier in this thread. Forts take too long to approximate Keep. But at the same time bc we have access to these forts in feudal I understand Devs don’t want instant keeps in feudal…. Although…. KT has instant keeps in feudal hmmmmm.

I propose compound of defender offer a new buff for speed. Instead of giving forts discount stone which is dog :poop:….. make all fort emplacements train in 5s !!! Saving 80 stone per fort is meaningless. Currently waiting 90s on top of build time to get keep level strength ish is a huge drawback AND overall it’s more expensive even with current COMPOUND stone saving vs a standard keep.

In a highly contested game you’re not maximizing all 6 tier 4 governors to their 4th tiers? Maybe in a 2hr+ game?? But in a 30-40 min game?? There is no way you’re gonna get more than 2, 3 governors? Even if, definitely not getting 3+ gov’s to tier 4 governors (without the age 4 semi useless landmark)???

If instead the upgrades researched instantly, 3 to 4 forts reaching tier 4 governors may not be completely uncommon, given how currently that’s around how many keeps ppl field now in a long game? The instant upgrade would make the fort instantly formidable and require the enemy to field the proper response…

Edit: make tier 3 and tier 4 instant (5s research with COMPOUND).

Making this a castle age perk would prevent this from destroying feudal play.

EDIT:

CURSE OF AULIYA

I already reported the bugs but I think I get it now; So when it works correctly it should decrease the attack speed of whatsoever hits the keep by 30% effectively increasing the HP of the fort by 30%; well if you only get the 2nd tier upgrade and the Curse you’d spend 825 resources on said fort which is 91% of cost of a standard KEEP; well the effective HP you get from Curse plus 2nd tier upgrade equals (3500)*1.3(eff)=4550 effective HP which is!!! 91% the HP of a standard Keep! However the curse doesnt work correctly vs rams AND some units that have a special attack speed buff?? I’ve seen it NOT work on Japanese units.

59

Forts do seem too clunky. Although I disagree with this idea of making emplacements practically instant. Not because it isn’t good, but rather because that is also a shit boon for a landmark.

They’ve made the mistake of spreading Forts too thin by giving them too many mechanics. The consequence is that they cannot realistically be scaled up. Same issue as with China dynasty bonuses, it’s not realistic to get all of those bonuses in one game. The difference here is that China has to at least build half of each required landmark to age up. Forts are completely independent and are not required at all, meaning you have to go out of your way to build them.

Which means they ought to offer an immediate bonus to justify going out of your way to building them. But, unlike regular Keeps which are immediately powerful, Fort’s built-in boons mean they need an additional minute with even more resources to compete. And while this could’ve been simple as the KT Fortress (Just a keep with a singular, powerful, immediate baked-in bonus), I imagine they went in the opposite direction to make them feel unique.

The problem is that these incremental bonuses are too inconsequential for the price, a price which takes into account its overall potential power. When are you realistically going to have 6 level 3 Forts? While possible, it’s just making investing into a singular Fort feel bad. Ajmer seems to be the exception in that it provides a somewhat broken mechanic that is unique to Tughlaq (infinitely spawning units), and though upgrading it does make the bonus better, the very first tier is incredibly powerful–more so than the Fort itself. The other boons are just too mediocre initially to justify this whole upgrade system. So yea, it just feels like a mechanic that is spread too thin. 6 bonuses with two tiers each makes Tughlaq powerful with them all unlocked, but makes individual upgrades suck as a result.

1 Like
60

It’s clear given the options and the synergy with age 4 landmarks maximizing governors is part and particle with the way they designed this civ to be played, whether or not we max all of them to tier 4, I think they want all at least unlocked over the span of a 25-40kmin game.

So let’s do that!!

Compound of the Defender will now reduce all building stone COSTs by 50%!! Increase build speed on all building costing stone by 100%. And grant access to level 4 gov’s!! If forts go from 400 stone down to 200 stone!?? Now you can drop 2 down for the price of 1!

Even if the discount brought fort costs down to just 250 stone and gave at least 50% build speed?? This would be huge!! Bc at minimum you’d be getting 2 towers worth of protection (200w value) and a governor (if you took the farm one and had zero farms it would at min be still be worth a 50w mill).

Forts should function effectively as tughlaq’s outposts with options to become a keep! The only 2 things gatekeeping this play style are the cost and the build time. Plus this suggested change still makes tughlaq pay even more than normal price for keep status, yet it allows tugD to litter the map with keeps for vision and protection and bonuses.

61

I’m also finding that Raider Elephants are more likely to attack spears despite not telling them to. Their larger hitbox means they can reach targets that normal sized horsemen can’t, so they will often ignore your command to attack closer units (which are always spears). It makes commanding them quite inconvenient and annoying.

62

Feel like Governor of Sehwan should’ve just been a tech. What other tech in the game costs 1000 resources for such a weak effect? Out of all “bonuses”, this is the most technology-like effect. For example, spawning free Amir Warriors could never be a tech, neither could getting food for nearby houses around Forts, increasing TC production speed nor reducing tech cost.

But, giving damage boost to healed units? That’s just Zeal. Why is that a bonus for a Fort? Just doesn’t feel good.

63

Base forts are well priced…

However the perks are not equally useful.

Tughlaqabad Fort: 400 stone, 135s build time, 2000HP, 10 garrison slots, 10 × 2 arrows dmg per second.

Considering the cost and it’s defensive stats it comparable to 2 Outposts with double arrowslits* worth over 417 resources (750HP/Outpost per 100w, 75 res/arrowslits, effectively 267 for the tower + 75×2 for the arrowslits). And consider the build time, 135s isn’t enough time to build 2 Outposts and research arrowslits, so you’re saving, 15s. THEN, on top of all that you get a perk!!?

It’s at that final point that we go from a highly efficient double Outpost to a, “maybe we should rush to get one or so of these forts up?” And hence the sticking point. This game is mostly played with very minimal use of Outposts, even by Mongols?? If you want a civ to go out of its way to make MULTIPLE “Outposts”, they need to be more than just cost effective defensively!!!?

Right now I don’t think there can be any arguments made against the Governor of Amjer (the “defensive” perk) being by far the flat out best governor of all the Governors?! (PLEASE DON’T NERF THIS).

All the rest are, IMO, niche, or underpowered/too slow!! AKA not worth rushing to get it up in the way Byzantine rushes to maximize Cisterns and builds their entire playstyles around said Cisterns.

For example: Gov of Bhakkar (farm/house food bonus) operates more like a pricy mill, bc you don’t want this fort exposed, especially if you hope to leverage the food buff with farms and house, but rushing into making this fort doesn’t net you much eco given the investment?

You mine 400 stone, and slam this fort down either in base or behind your base, maybe even near back hunt! If in base then you HAVE to now start surrounding it with houses and farms otherwise you just wasted a ton of resources? If you needed the in base defense then AMJER!! If on a back hunt then the efficient fort aspect pays off fine but the perk is deferred since you’re only taking advantage of the garrison and arrowslits potential? Next, even when you go to surround the fort with houses the food generated is abysmal? 12food/50w house? Meanwhile Mali gets 9gold!!!/25w house? You can improve the return but that increases the overall cost of this overpriced mill the more. So IMO, this is a mid late game farm transition fort.

To better incentives this civ to play around prioritizing making forts, we need all the forts* to have a global buff!

Gov of Bhakkar

will now offer a base perk of 10% stone with all food drop offs anywhere! Allow this percentage to compound with the civ bonus resources dropoff bonus, which means if a villager gathered 10 food and drops it off with a current 5% civ bonus they will get 10.5 food and now also 1.05 stone for a total of 11.55 resources. This type of perk would reward the use of this fort without giving the civ even more safe food, which is the bane to competive AOE4 (safe food wood gold).

Gov of Amjer

Will now in addition make all melee infantry cost 10 less food.

Gov of Jalor

All cav charge is extended by 10s

Gov of Mulan

Increase build speed by a flat 15% to include landmark and wonders.

Gov of Sehwan

Increase relic and site bonus gold up to 30%.

Gov of Uch

Age up and emplacements get a flat 15% discount