After the Janissaries were ruined, the Cav Archers were left as the only power unit.
And you need Sipahi Cav Archers very badly, especially against good archers. You want to spend as little time in the Feudal Age as possible with a minimum military investment, and Cav Archers require a lot of upgrades to be serviceable. The Feudal Age and Early Castle Age are where you are the most vulnerable.
The crisis was still manageable though and later had actually been solved after the scout line got +1 pierce armor. You could have bought food by using the gold mining bonus for either a fast castle or quickly getting 8-range Janissaries to deter stronger compositions (especially Conquistadors). So, the Turks had the tools to survive until getting these upgraded Cavalry Archers. The only unresolved issue was having a lack of options against elephants, which could have been solved by giving camel-line units bonus damage against elephants.
And when they nerfed the Janissary’s range and inflated the food prices, the already solved issue re-emerged.
I don’t think they can survive another nerf disguised as a buff, especially targeting their Cavalry Archers.
hp - 55
attack - 4 + 22 vs cavalry
attack rate - 3
It comes out that the trash camel would have the same hp as 2 pikemen, but the dps vs cav of almost one - two thirds of 1 if we consider elephants. In the end, you pay for two pikemen in food to get the durability of 2, base dps of two, but the anticav potential of just one.
Not sure how much the base damage means, but it seems like loss in cost / gain in pop efficiency trade.
Feels like a better fit for the cumans or tho.
Feels like a bonus for a civ not yet introduced imho. Heck you could go less all in on the shift. 80%less gold half of which becomes food and it still feels fair
Turks were perfectly fine until they started sneakily nerfing them to the ground over the last few years. Re-establishing the previous Janissary-Hand Cannoneer balance, lowering food prices, and nerfing Hindustani/Italian Hand Cannoneers are necessary steps to revert these horrendous decisions.
Hindu HC are already part of their identity. They need to keep a solid power units. Imperial Camels are very good but its still a counter unit not a power unit.
Currently the bottom 5 are Aztecs (surprising despite infantry & jaguar buffs), Georgians, Byzantines, Burgundians and Gurjaras. While Turks are barely under 50% (49.63%)
Does any of that really help Turks at all? The reason for the food price drop mainly moreso impacts all-in strats and seems to be targeted at the ‘red phosphoru playstyle’. Their worst matchups are vs Archer Civs, who likely spam spear + crossbow, trying to force the turks onto their skirmishers, and outcompeting the Turk player if they try to add archers of their own.
A boring fix would be to give them E-Skirm but their identity hinges on the fact that they dont get good counter units.
Another interesting idea would be to move Janissary to a more scorpion like role, increasing their pierce armour and maybe range but also give them some negative archer armour (to get countered by skirmishers more)
The janissary isnt the reason they are weak on a map like Arabia, and its gotten even worse since militia and m@a opening good now.
Better to bring back the previous food prices or decrease the food cost. 150 gold is unacceptable. And with cheaper food, Turks could afford a bit more scout or men-at-arms.
