This is my final version for Dravidian changes.
Dravidians:
* [REMOVE "+200 wood bonus"]
[Replace] "All Economy techs researched instantly"
* [REMOVE "+15 fish carry"]
[Replace] "Age up cost -20% food"
* [OPTIONAL REMOVE "33% Siege wood discount"]
[Replace] "Blacksmith and University upgrades for Galley line 50% cheaper"
* [REMOVE "Block Printing"] Replacement: "Redemption"
* [REMOVE "Medical Corps"]
[Replace "Strike Corps"] - Elephants and Castle units move +20% faster.
Cost 300 food and 300 gold.
Dravidians are too different to play as a typical aoe2 civ. They feel like a AOE2.5 fishing wars civ. They get a huge wood bonus when feudal is reached. That’s good for a killer blow on water. But its nominal on land. They have no strong answer to Knight raids in castle age except monks. But Monk tech tree is very poor and lacks redemption and fervor. So that is a lot of resources for one time use. In water as well, they don’t get any meaningful advantages after early feudal age. The fish carry capacity makes vills force drop every once in a while which is too demanding and does not result in the 23% faster collection as per design. In contrast, Japanese get faster working fishing ships which are far tanky. So this bonus maybe a Team bonus. But not a civ bonus. They have no reason to construct a stable. Their raiding potential is non-existent. They need a better design of the urumi.
The civ seems to be a copy-paste of viking in terms of team bonus and costs of techs. They save almost the same amount of wood on their docks. Their unique units cost almost the same. The blacksmith is identical. It seems to be a tweak of Viking civ after duplicating its design. But Dravidians don’t get amazing economy bonus like Vikings. So having a terrible stable hurts Dravidian civ far more than Vikings. The eco bonus that replaces +200 wood bonus will help Dravidian civ mimic Vikings gameplay despite needing to pay for eco upgrades.
The re-work seeks to maintain the current gameplay in dark and feudal. It improves castle and imperial play by giving coping up options to overcome lack of mobility. The fish carry and siege discount replacement bonus is for quicker age up and galley line upgrade techs being 50% cheaper. This bonus makes flaching, bodkin arrow, bracer, Ballistics and chemistry cheaper by 50%. The cheaper attack upgrades in blacksmith allow them to continue pressure in feudal on both land and water. More powerful galley than opponent will help make transition from fire ship to ranged units on water which is preferable. Since fishing bonus is removed, it will be balanced on water. Their absence of Knights make their castle age their Achilles heel. The blacksmith and university bonus helps the player prepare defensively with a TC with extra attack using bodkin arrow and accuracy of ballistics.
These bonuses are less powerful than blacksmith free upgrades to Malay, Magyars and Koreans. But better than Bulgarians discount for making aggressive gameplay possible. Thematically Dravidians are an infantry and Naval civ, the current siege discount does little for their game play according to their theme. The dravidians kingdoms of the cholas, cheras and Pandyas were not land powers. They did not do siege of castles like the Europeans in the great northern European plains. They valued control of costal ports and trading outposts. They did not favor extensive land campaigns. Wars were far shorter and far more intense. So Siege bonus is not appropriate. They did have amazing ships and metallurgy technologies. The blacksmith upgrades discount for only attack techs reinforces the theme of their units being glass cannons. Besides tropical climate regions don’t use armor as much as Europe. Infantry attack upgrades are not included since ‘woots steel’ will make it OP and there are barrack techs to boost infantry attacks. So this bonus combination is a good design. The civilization that invented “wootz steel” lacking blacksmith bonus is incorrect. This change can fix that.
Removing “Medical corps” should have been the first thing to fix the civ, since it does not aid Dravidian gameplay nor it is a historically accurate technology. What Cholas did in reality was they bought technology from China and middle east to make state of the art military. They did buy the finest horses as well. But the civ design uses elephant as their only cavalry. So they need a special ability. Dravidian battle elephants were reared as the best in the world for warfare. They used them extensively during invasion of Sri lanka too. A swift invasion of “Srivijaya” and malay archipelego was possible because of this. These elephants need to have at least one defining offensive unique tech that signifies this.
A castle unique tech buffing elephants and castle units will be a good design. We have " Wagenburg Tactics" which is a balanced technology. We can apply the same effect to Elephants and castle units. This will make Urumi usable as well in their current form with the speed boost. They can be a late game raiding unit. Trebuchet which can equal archer and long swords speed would be a good supporting unit to push defensive buildings like castles and TCs. Armored elephants were nerfed which hurt Dravidian play a lot and they have only normal battle elephants without any elite versions. This technology is essential to make them viable. With this tech and removal of “Medical corps”, Dravidian Ele archers have the speed to run away from skirm fights. But not from halbs. So its balanced.
This is how Dravidian civ bonuses will look after these changes.
Dravidians:
* All Economy techs researched instantly
* Age up cost -20% food
* Barracks technologies cost -50%.
* Skirmishers and Elephant Archers attack 25% faster.
* Blacksmith and University upgrades for Galley line 50% cheaper.
* [REMOVE "Block Printing"] Replacement: "Redemption"
* "Strike Corps - Elephants and Castle units move +20% faster.
Cost 300 food and 300 gold.