I think you underestimate higher base damage when it comes to pierce damage.
Paladins have 3+4 = 7 pierce armour so a Hand cannon does 10 damage but a Elite Janissary does 15 which is 50% more.
even for a unit with 0 base pierce armour (so 4 with from the Blacksmith) its almost 40% more damage.
Only against units with 0 pierce armour (do they exist?) it’s just 30% more attach. Still makes the Janissary a lot more population efficient.
Also accuracy gets higher when enemies get closer because “missed” shots often still hit their intended target. Even at max range there is a chance that happens so you always hit more targets then advertised.
In the year 2700, the Turks finally ceased to be in fashion in Arena.
To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t mind if the Elite Janissaries lost e.g. 5 base attack, and in return got +5 against infantry and cavalry and some extra accuracy as compensation.
So finally the Condottiero would have a bonus attack to ignore, and it would be easier to fine-tune the unit in various situations rather than the current flat damage (in the sense that the unit has essentially no bonus attack).
tbh. I’d probably rework the Janissary as an anti cavalry unit similar to AoE4 or AoE3 (only in melee in AoE3).
This would make them more different from Hand Cannons.
They should still have higher base damage though.
Shrivamsha Riders’ dodge bar is depleted after 5 ranged unit hits simultaneously. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a javelin, arrow, bullet, or cannonball.
Even if Janissaries got extra damage, they would still need to get past this mechanic first. Plus, Janissaries lack speed, accuracy, and ballistics, so in the best-case scenario, they could only deter them.
Though, this bonus would be very helpful against elephants and camels.
Nothing there to balance. Its a closed map civ with a deadly gunpowder unique unit. You either do castle drop into janissary rush or use the free light cav upgrade bonus to pick up relics and hit imp soon. Either way its not a full crazy boom civ to face elephants after 40 mins of boom.
I believe the worse win rates are due to Hindustani economy, having superior hand canoneers than camels being the problem. As far as Gurjaras are concerned, I believe its due to Shrivamsha riders. You can’t compare using general winrate stats since 70% of games are played on Arabia and that will be the major influential factor and Turks aren’t an Arabia civ by design. They’re a closed or semi-closed map civ and you have to particularly look at winrate stats on such maps. Turks have 59% winrate on Arena at 1900+ and 53% at 1200+. They’re fine.
As far as elephants is concerned, there should be some downside of being passive and booming for 45 mins with Turks against elephant or elephant archer civs. That’s just bad strategy and shouldn’t be rewarded.
That has nothing to do with elephants, mostly just economy.
Even though not necessary, this wouldn’t be a bad idea either. Could be a secondary effect of Artillery.
Stats don’t confirm anything of that sort. Among the 5 worst matchups in terms of winrate at 1200+ elo, there are Romans and Huns. None of these have Camels or Elephant archers. Civ has 53% winrate against Dravidians at 1200+ which is an elephant archer civ. Likewise at 1900+ elo, Vikings and Celts are there in the list of worst civs and Turks have 61% winrate vs Dravidians. So nothing to do with Elephant archers. Hopefully it might change with the upcoming patch but that unit is a meme and almost never produced in competitive 1v1s.
The idea is if you rushed in castle age with a lot of janissaries and you have 40 of them, just get elite. Otherwise go for hand canoneers. If you simply boomed there’s still some benefit in doing elite janissaries instead of hand canoneers in terms of pop efficiency.
They have +1 range, +5 attack, so instead of having 50 hand canoneers, you can go for 40 Elite janissaries and that will give you the pop space for hussar, bombard canons.
At higher elos there are so many of such bad matchups. Spanish vs Vikings, Vietnamese. Bohemians against Chinese, Burgundians against Malians, Slavs. The common thing about such stats is that one of these is a closed map civ and the other is an open map civ. Since 70% of games are played on Arabia, the closed map civ’s stats is extremely worse against some of the open map civs.
Again that’s because of the Arabia influence where Turk light cav+ca play in castle age or the instant chemistry and hussar raids might be winning them the game against Italians.
They were not. They were broken and because of them Turks had 65% winrate on Arena. It was almost impossible for other civs to compete. Battle elephants, elephant archers just don’t make much sense in 1v1s. Those units are too slow, too expensive and vulnerable to conversions.
Their accuracy has been buffed to 65% and projectile speed got buffed by almost 40% a long time ago.
But there are many other units the Turks can use to counter them.
Camels eat them for breakfast. Pretty much any melee unit counters them pretty well, than includes Hussars.
I know Turks are probably too strong on closed maps but isn’t that something that could be addressed too?
For example remove free Chemistry and just make it 50% cheaper like the other gunpowder techs.
Reduce the base damage of Janissaries but give them a bonus against Cavalry, Camels and Elephants.
-2 base damage but +5/4/5 vs Cavalry/Camels/Elephants something like that. It would differentiate them more from Hand Cannons and make it a more interesting choice which one to train.
They could also use a small early game bonus. Maybe start with 50 extra Gold? Though that’s a bonus that the Aztecs already have.
On the other hand Persians and Lithuanians both start with extra Food.
Or it could be 100 Gold on Age up similar to the Dravidian bonus.
Basically reduce their Early Imperial power spike and make them a little better in Feudal Age.
In 1200+ Elo, Turks are just above average on closed maps and bad on Arabia, whereas the Spanish are a top-five civilization on almost all closed maps and are still better than the Turks on Arabia. Plus, the Spanish have perhaps the best tech tree, and they will receive an additional buff in the upcoming patch.
The longer the matches go the higher the Turk winrate though.
So buffing their gunpowerder units won’t help them survive Feudal and Early Castle Age.
Maybe give them 100 Gold on Age up but remove free Chemistry (just 50% discounted). This would help them in Feudal Age but reduce their early Imperial power spike.
(By comparison, giving an average player one Cobra when reaching Castle Age against a pro player was a significant challenge for the pro, and he did try to delay the enemy’s castle age as much as possible to avoid facing it)
