Unique Unit - Makurian Archer

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

Theoretical unique unit for the Ethiopians.

Characteristics:

Archery unit with fast firing rate and attack bonus against other unique units. (Consider them as a ranged Samurai. They defended against neighboring invaders, and they had excellent archers.)

Cost: 60 wood, 30 gold

HP: 55, 65 (Elite)
Attack: 6, 8 (Elite)
Range: 7
Bonuses: +8, +10 (Elite) against Unique Unit, +2 vs spearmen-line, +3 vs eagle warrior
RoF: 1.45
Accuracy: 80%, 90% (Elite)
Melee Armor: 1
Pierce Armor: 1
Speed: 1

Elite Upgrade Cost: 650 food, 630 gold

2

Really broken. Shreds UUs, has 2 more range than an Arb, fires a lot faster than the archer line, which stacks with the 18% faster firing, and has 2 more base damage than an Arb for the Elite Version, not to mention 25 more HP. The accuracy doesn’t really matter, because Ethiopians have TR, but it’s the same as the archer line.

10 Likes
3

Nah, I’m pretty sure he means 7 rage total, so 4+3.

Tone down the armor, give it 0.1 more speed, make the bonuses +5/+8 or +4/+6 against UU, and maybe… tho that 8 damage is very sus, 7 is kinda the “maximum” for foot archers. Also 50/60 HP instead of 55/65.

And it’s actually gonna be not broken. Not that it in any way solves the issues ethiopians currently have, but who cares.

(The issues are being very susceptible to siege and skirmishers in all stages of the game except mid imp when BBC (with torsion engines) become an option. Some matchups are straight up unwinnable for Ethiopians, like Vietnamese, Lithuanians counter them very well, Vikings are quite decent, Britons too, Bulgarians, basically any civ with decent skirms and smooth transitions)

Also the Houfnice and the Winged Hussar opened a new way to add civ diversity. Unique upgrade lines.

Say, for the sake of conceptualization, Britons had no crossbow/arb, but instead had Longbow and Elite Longbow as their upgrades for their archer line, or alternatively, the Elite Longbow was an upgrade to the Arb. This removes the super redundant UU, opens more paths for civ customization, where the longbow would be a more expensive upgrade, but have 6 damage in the castle age.

And then Ethiopians had a much faster firing archer as their unique “upgrade” in the archer line.

Those are just examples of course, don’t take them too seriously. For new civs/with a bit more thought it could make more sense potentially.

Or straight up Elite Arb upgrade in imp for a new civ, who has that unit as the supposedly backline DD unit, has no bonuses for the archer line aside of that, and is a cavalry and skirm focused civ up until imp, when they are supposed to make that transition into hussar/elite arb.

Possibilities, possibilities…

Hence my thread for “every civ should have 2 UUs”, or to phrase it better, 2 Unique “Things”, not necessarily units.

1 Like
4

I did consider the 7 total, but usually the stat listed is the base range, and it wouldn’t fit as well with my narrative of a broken unit if it had 7 total.

5 Likes
5

Yeah I honestly can’t tell either. Maybe the 8 attack was with factoring in the +4 from bracer and chemistry in imp? Could have been easily, as a +10 vs UU on a ranged unit is no joke.

2 Likes
6

Unless the OP clarifies better, I think assume they mean those stats as base values, because that is normally how people suggest stuff.

7

Usually in those ideas I’ve come to assume the stats provided are base stats (unless they specify it’s total after upgrades).

Also, +10 bonus damage on a ranged unit is just bonkers. Genoese Xbows eat cavalry and it only has +5/+7 bonus damage vs cavalry. It also has bonuses vs Eagle Warrior. :crazy_face:

It should be a slow firing unit to have a bonus that big and move slower. The Elite upgrade is also kinda cheap.

3 Likes
8

This unit would be absurd. 2 more attack and range over arbs, extra armor, speed, attack speed, and health on top of that, and a low gold cost?

9

The idea of an archer UU with bonus damage against eagles is pretty interesting for future new civs, but I definitely wouldn’t replace Shotel Warriors with this unit.

10

If there is an archer dealing bonus dmg vs UU, I prefer to give Japanese cavalry archer bonus atk against UU. Samurai is currently underwhelming against ranged UU.

1 Like
11

Cost: 65 wood, 35 gold

HP: 55, 75 (Elite) (no bloodlines)
Attack: 6, 8 (Elite)
Range: 4
Bonuses: +4, +6 (Elite) against Unique Unit, +2 vs spearmen-line, +2 vs eagle warrior
RoF: 2 (same as cav archer)
Accuracy: 50%, 60% (Elite) (thumb ring bumps it to 100%)
Melee Armor: 0
Pierce Armor: 0
Speed: 1.35 (same as knight-line)

Elite Upgrade Cost: 900 wood, 550 gold

Changed it a little, i think it would be more balanced this way. Interesting unit, i like it. Could still be broken though, but not as much.

1 Like
12

Lol what the heck is this design, you basically took an Arbalest and you buffed it in EVERY single aspect. Oh and of course, gold efficient. Wtf…

That’s not how strategy works.

13

just this makes it OP as an archer, nevermind the rest, that cost for that hp, on an ethiopian archer

2 Likes
14

The non-elite Mangudai has 80hp with Bloodlines, and benefits from Parthian tactics. This unit would not have bloodlines nor Parthian tactics. Also cav archers don’t benefit from the archer bonus.

But sure seems a bit cheap on the gold. increase cost to 65w and 60g. I wouldnt’ decrease the HP any more because then getting Elite seems pointless.

15

Why don’t you give them splash damage and double piercing projectiles while you’re at it

2 Likes
16

You forgot bonus vs buildings too!

Extra points: each splashed tile also does bonus damage vs buildings. So instead of just + damage to one arrow, it splashes to nearby 4 tiles and gets +damage on those too!

17

I think this unit is fine if it has 20 to 25 HP

18

At what point did you mention this is CA?

Mongols revolve almost purely around mangudai( which costs double the gold of your unit) With holes in their tech tree and a pretty average , very short term eco bonus outside of specific maps.

Mangudai also don’t have the last archer armour upgrade which almost cancels out PT

Blood lines costs something, your extra hp on this UU doesn’t.

CA take bonus dmg from skirms AND anti cav units like camels. So again, is this CA or is it a foot archer like your OP implies? ETH have terribad cavalry(2nd worse out of all civs with cav afaik) so everything hints at this being a foot archer.

And you gave this mofo faster fire rate than a mangudai!?!?

And more range than a foot archer? Fast archers (or CA) should generally have less or at least equal range to foot archers, only Magyar CA match range with a UT, never longer range.

19

I’m not the OP lol I guess for the amount of HP he gave the unit, i assumed it had to be a cav archer, because otherwise it would be just crazy.

So for OP, it’s a foot archer. For me it’s a cav archer xD i would also increase the gold cost to 60. I think for being a cav archer, it wouldn’t be op because the cav archers from the ethiopians are terrible, like you said. For foot archers it’s crazy OP, given all the bonus and crazy hp. However, is this a necessary unit? Nah.