Urumi Swordsmen - Made simple

[Pulikesi25]

@DemiserofD

Like I said before, you are forgetting whatever it was you used in feudal. You also shouldn’t preemptively build urumis because you don’t need them until your enemy responds to your rams.

Their response to your rams is mangonels and this is why you should never waste time to build a castle and resources to do urumis or go for rams. So far this is what I’ve been telling you, opponents of Dravidians always make skirms because xbows, elephant archers are the main generic units and then eventually add cavalry. So your urumis will die. And if you mix rams, they’ll still use skirms to target attack your urumis and use mangonels against rams.

@DemiserofD

Oh, also, elephant rams haven’t cost 130 food in like 2 years.

oooo…ok 120 food…point’s still the same 120/21 = 5.71 mins of villager work time, 160/27 = 5.95 mins of villager work time. If opponent gets bow saw, its 160/32 = 5 mins of villager work time. The big picture here is wood collection rate is 30-45% higher depending on upgrades and distance from lumbercamp. So Elephant rams aren’t really cheaper.

@DemiserofD

Honestly, I think the first thing you need to do to figure out dravidians is actually go play them and try the unique options, since it seems pretty clear you haven’t done that in a while.

I’ve tried and lost many times and this isn’t a problem just for me. Almost every top-10 pro player has <50% winrate with Dravidians in tournaments, <30% if you exclude maps like migration while the overall winrates of those players are >65%.
Honestly you should signup on twitch or youtube and watch some pro games live and interact with them. They’ll tell you why a castle drop in the first few mins of castle age is not a good idea for civs with infantry unique units. And slowly but eventually you’ll understand why battle elephants + longswords or castle drop into urumis + elephant rams are impractical and uncompetitive ideas.

Dravidians are flawed by design. No knights, no CA, no good monks, lacks siege engineers and no special abilities on siege, and no strong long term eco bonus that justifies such a huge handicap. None of the other civs have such huge gaps in their tech tree and yet most of them get a better economy. Unique unit is redundant, a melee that’s fragile against skirms yet costing a lot of food. Medical corps and elephant archers are secondary units, like a nice-to-have additional option to regular units but can’t “replace” them.

Anyways post is specifically about Urumi swordsmen which are terrible and cannot be used the way you are recommending - an early castle age unique unit with elephant rams in a standard rm land map. Whatever changes OP suggested are decent but still won’t make them usable but someday when Dravidian eco/tech tree gets fixed through addition of proper knight replacement, ca replacement or long term economic bonus, the proposed version of urumi would be quite decent. On par with Lia Dao or Obuch

[SMUM15236]

Topic accelerated from redesigning Urumi to “TheViper - Dravidians is awesome” vs “Hera - Dravidians is garbage”.

[DemiserofD]

Sorry, but that’s not really what I described, unfortunately. Urumis are a defensive unit, not an offensive one. They’re not great at dealing with buildings, that’s a large part of why you need rams. As a food unit, they’re very poorly optimized for phosphoru strats, frankly. The only reason elephant rams are more viable is because they’re much cheaper overall and more gold focused.

@Pulikesi25

Honestly you should signup on twitch or youtube and watch some pro games live and interact with them. They’ll tell you why a castle drop in the first few mins of castle age is not a good idea for civs with infantry unique units.

Fortunately, that’s not what I’m talking about. You use your inertia advantage to build and support the rams, and then back it up with an offensive castle if your ram push works to any degree. If they go for mangonels you can either respond with elephant archers and longswords, or urumis, depending on their choices. Since the speed boost longswords are more than effective enough vs skirms, and are dravidians best option there. Going for your own mangonels only invites redemption, but can be a good choice if they lack that.

The only real hard counter to dravidians is redemption, so avoid that at all costs. I strongly suspect going for mangonels tends to be the choice which typically causes you to lose, since even if you win the mangonel duel, you lose the war.

[SMUM15236]

I made a resource regain rate list for all land units that regenarate.

Value of resource savings from regenaration

The idea is if you heal a unit form 1 HP, you are essentially saving the whole cost of that unit. This makes unit regeneration bonuses a passive source of resource generation. Here is a list of resource regain rate for all units that regenerate. [Regenaration] [Regenaration 2]

@DemiserofD, since you are obsessed with Medical Corps, I think you should look into it.

[GermanAttorney8]

Back to the topic

I dont think trample damage on infantry makes sense either - elephantos and riders have it because the mount tramples on them, but its very hard to imagine a weapon like what urumi held can have 50% trample damage, isnt it like they are melee grenadier (lol) instead?

[JoJo9942]

its a whip like sword, why wouldnt it hit nearby units?

[GermanAttorney8]

I dont think it aligns with how trample damage is given, following the logic then LS (and a bunch of cavs) should also gain trample damage

[JoJo9942]

Term for Urumi is splash damage, not trample. And it only does splash damage during the charge attack

[Pulikesi25]

@DemiserofD

Sorry, but that’s not really what I described, unfortunately. Urumis are a defensive unit, not an offensive one. They’re not great at dealing with buildings, that’s a large part of why you need rams. As a food unit, they’re very poorly optimized for phosphoru strats, frankly. The only reason elephant rams are more viable is because they’re much cheaper overall and more gold focused.

Nobody does a castle drop early game and makes high food infantry units and rams for defense. Resources spent on the castle and urumis will be a complete waste.

@DemiserofD

As a food unit, they’re very poorly optimized for phosphoru strats, frankly.

Yes. So making urumis in early castle age, which is what is referred to as phosphorus strats, is a terrible strategy.

@DemiserofD

The only reason elephant rams are more viable is because they’re much cheaper overall and more gold focused.

If you’re playing a meme game where gaia slings you food or some map where you have 200 boars or deer then sure. Otherwise food is the slowest gathered resource, dependent on wood and utilized the most for vills, techs and advancing to next age. So NO, Rams are NOT viable. They’re somewhat viable for Gurjaras because of the 30% extra dps but even then its not a good idea to do elephant rams first in early castle age.

@DemiserofD

Fortunately, that’s not what I’m talking about. You use your inertia advantage to build and support the rams, and then back it up with an offensive castle if your ram push works to any degree. If they go for mangonels you can either respond with elephant archers and longswords, or urumis, depending on their choices.

Yes, in EARLY CASTLE AGE, I’ll build a castle, siege workshop, elephant rams, urumi swordsmen then seeing a couple of mangonel, I’ll use the sling from GAIA and add more barracks, longswordsmen upgrade or more archery ranges, get fletching and bodkin and do elephant archers. All I need for this is gaia slinging 1000 resources each minute like in custom campaigns.
Be realistic. In ranked games, people hit castle age with 35-40 vills. 10-12 on wood, 8-10 on gold, 16-20 farmers. If you’re sending vills on stone in late feudal, castle age will be significantly delayed. Its not possible to afford most of the things you’ve mentioned here after an early castle age castle.

If you’re having something else in mind, put it as an approximate build. Something like this “22 min castle age, 1 tc, 23rd min castle built, 26 min 10 urumi swordsmen + 2 elephant rams forward, 30th min an extra range or barrack, 33 min 10 elephant archer with bodkin”

@DemiserofD

The only real hard counter to dravidians is redemption, so avoid that at all costs. I strongly suspect going for mangonels tends to be the choice which typically causes you to lose, since even if you win the mangonel duel, you lose the war.

Redemption is like a nail in the coffin when you’re trying hard to push by using the only long term castle age bonus but its certainly not the only problem. With knight pathing relatively better and a few knight civs buffed, Dravidians have started dying to late castle age cavalry raids again and winrate is back to bottom-5 as expected.

[GermanAttorney8]

Wait, isn’t charge attack removed in this proposal?

[benithisrael]

@GermanAttorney8

I dont think trample damage on infantry makes sense either - elephantos and riders have it because the mount tramples on them, but its very hard to imagine a weapon like what urumi held can have 50% trample damage, isnt it like they are melee grenadier (lol) instead?

Then how do slav infantry do trample damage? does dhruzine give them cavalry limbs?

[benithisrael]

@GermanAttorney8

Wait, isn’t charge attack removed in this proposal?

Urumi in reality was good to fight multiple opponents at the same time. So this rework fits that ability.

@Pulikesi25

With knight pathing relatively better and a few knight civs buffed, Dravidians have started dying to late castle age cavalry raids again and winrate is back to bottom-5 as expected.

Yuip! the civ needs a proper design overhaul.

[GermanAttorney8]

Plot twist - they don’t, so I think they should change as well!

A minimal number (10%?) looks fine, not 50%