What do Dravidians get?

[Pulikesi25]

@Nerathion

Not every unit has to be the same… their purpose is to be glass cannons. One that also shreds everything in melee fights.

Glass canons must be either fast or long ranged or dirt cheap. Or they shouldnt be a “glass canon” and be more tanky. Otherwise they’re just free deaths. Its ok to use such a unit when the civ has limited options against other melee units, like missing halb upgrade to counter cavalry or no proper ranged units to counter other civ’s infantry.

@Nerathion

Urumis are devastating units when used properly, and they’re very cheap and fast enough to catch up to things.

Its not a unit worth its investment, doesn’t have a purpose for that civ. Like campaigns, if you get 40 urumis from outside the map or like CBA, sure you can use them. But if you’re adapting your build to do urumis, its a poor strategy in almost every map and matchup.

@Nerathion

Sure, like any other infantry UU. Its stats are great - the blast attack more than makes up for its ‘cost’.

Doesn’t. The only good infantry uu as main army in 1v1 are Huskarl, Ghulam, Obuch through regular production, Serjeants and Flemish militia through their respective button UT. Rest are extremely niche, overpriced, almost never needed.

@Nerathion

But you’re going to be construction castles either way, for Wootz Steel, trebs, and defenses. But this gave me another idea.

While on the way to imp, sure you can do a castle or maybe two, get UT, conscription and a few trebs but that’s not the same as putting several vills on stone, getting 4 castles and going for elite urumi swordsmen. You can do 10 barracks and do plenty of champion if you need a strong melee against other melee unit. They have more hp, more armor, less food cost, less upgrade costs.

@Nerathion

What if on top of 175 wood they also get, say 100 stone per age up? Gives them a very reliable castle!

A great change to Dravidians- helps them do tower rush with maa/skirms or sell and hit castle age very fast, drop a forward castle quite soon against many civs. But still urumis aren’t going to be needed or useful. 55 hp 0 p.armor and 1.05 speed are just too weak stats for 65 food, 20 gold.

[Tropfzahn]

@Pulikesi25

Glass canons must be either fast or tanky or long ranged.

You sure you mean it like that? Tanky glass cannons?

[Pulikesi25]

My bad, it was poor choice of words to phrase it that way.

[Nerathion]

@Pulikesi25

Glass canons must be either fast or long ranged or dirt cheap.

What? Who said this? Just you? Nowhere in its design does ‘glass cannon’ state it has to be cheap, it could simply do a lot of damage, like Urumis. Sure, you can have fast and fragile units, long ranged fragile units, or dirt cheap and fragile units. We already have those (well, not the long ranged ones unless you count Longbowmen?) - as Karambits and Shotels. You could argue Urumis and Shotels overlap too much, but hey - where Shotels have speed, Urumis are actually cheap by your classification.

Funnily enough, both Ethiopians, Malay, Dravidians, Britons in such cases have Halberdiers and proper ranged units.

What units are you even actually thinking of in your current examples? Or civs?

@Pulikesi25

Its not a unit worth its investment, doesn’t have a purpose for that civ.

Champions lose to Cavalry, Urumis wreck both Infantry and Cavalry. It’s a unit that you can easily mix into your existing army that is strong straight off the bat. It’s a unit that you can make your main unit composition. Like most Infantry UUs, you simply don’t seem them very often on open maps, since getting to a Castle and only then starting to produce units is simply too slow.

@Pulikesi25

The only good infantry uu as main army in 1v1 are Huskarl, Ghulam, Obuch through regular production, Serjeants and Flemish militia

Berserk, Kamayuk, Karambit Warrior, Chakram Thrower… Arguably Janissary too, though not sure if Gunpowder would count.

I wouldn’t call those ‘niche’ and ‘overpriced’, or are you counting every possible UT they could have on top? Chakrams and Karambits aren’t that niche and overpriced, Berserks are only overpriced if you want to get Berserkergang. Kamayuks can be pricy but definitely not niche and overpriced considering they beat anything mounted and most melee fights, too.

@Pulikesi25

But still urumis aren’t going to be needed or useful. 55 hp 0 p.armor and 1.05 speed are just too weak stats for 65 food, 20 gold.

You’re too stuck on defensive stats to consider offensive stats. Infantry units can be something other than damage sponges.

[Pulikesi25]

@Nerathion

What? Who said this? Just you? Nowhere in its design does ‘glass cannon’ state it has to be cheap, it could simply do a lot of damage, like Urumis. Sure, you can have fast and fragile units, long ranged fragile units, or dirt cheap and fragile units. We already have those (well, not the long ranged ones unless you count Longbowmen?) - as Karambits and Shotels. You could argue Urumis and Shotels overlap too much, but hey - where Shotels have speed, Urumis are actually cheap by your classification.

You “could” have fragile glass canons with this type of stats and cost but they’ll never be made. All the units that you’ve mentioned are some of the worst unique units in the game. And the civs that have those are also universally average or below average on most settings, partly due to such units with disproportionate costs. It makes those units nearly impossible to use and limits the strategic options their civ has.
If any of these units get a good cost reduction or stats buff, they’ll be useful in more situations and make their civ better.

@Nerathion

You could argue Urumis and Shotels overlap too much, but hey - where Shotels have speed, Urumis are actually cheap by your classification.

Not cheap actually. Shotels cost less food and are more affordable in mid game compared to urumis. But this is just a comparison of which is less horrible. In reality both are terribly weak units for their stats.

@Nerathion

Champions lose to Cavalry, Urumis wreck both Infantry and Cavalry.

Its a fair value trade and replenishing the army happens at a much higher rate. When there’s cavalry and some ranged units, even skirms its much better to do champions.

@Nerathion

It’s a unit that you can easily mix into your existing army that is strong straight off the bat.

Again the hypothetical scenario where there are no ranged units in the battle.

@Nerathion

Like most Infantry UUs, you simply don’t seem them very often on open maps, since getting to a Castle and only then starting to produce units is simply too slow.

Why do you think that is? Why according to you are Ghulam or Obuchs seen quite often though?

@Nerathion

Berserk, Kamayuk, Karambit Warrior, Chakram Thrower

Chakrams, Kamayuks have range. Berserkers are slightly more useful than urumis because their civ lacks halbs and unlike champion they regenerate. But that’s only to say that they are less worse compared to these other uu.

@Nerathion

Chakrams and Karambits aren’t that niche and overpriced,

Chakrams are ranged, and they fit their civ perfectly. Karambits are niche. Both Karambits and shotels are just anti-Aztec monk-eagle-siege units. A few of them are sometimes made to snipe trebs or rams or raid and that’s because they have 1.2+ base speed, but they’re never the main army.

@Nerathion

Berserks are only overpriced if you want to get Berserkergang. Kamayuks can be pricy but definitely not niche and overpriced considering they beat anything mounted and most melee fights, too.

Both are overpriced, Kamayuks have some utility because of range, lot of hp and armor after their UT. Its also less common to go for ranged units against their civ because of 10 p.armor eagles.

@Nerathion

You’re too stuck on defensive stats to consider offensive stats. Infantry units can be something other than damage sponges.

Units without range need to have good defensive stats to survive long enough and do damage. Of course you can have fragile units that are cheap and don’t cost gold like halbs or pop efficient and cheap to be done in a few numbers for raids like Karambits

[Nerathion]

IDK - you can argue about their stats being weak, but that’s just wrong. Their damage output is insane.

Viper has even placed them in S-tier, above Obuch and Ghulam: The Best Unique Unit in AOE2:DE | Dec 2022 - YouTube

[Pulikesi25]

As you can see some of his S tier like Shrivamsha riders, Coustillier, Mangudai are seen almost every time that civ is played. Some like camel archers, leitis are seen less often but fairly a lot and some are map dependent.

Viper doesn’t mention from what standpoint is he rating the units. Is it ranking of units in the post imp situation once they’re massed or directly from dark age and how they fit the civ they belong to. Cataphracts and Mamelukes are great units in deathmatch, bf 4v4 and post imp scenarios where there’s already a lot of resources, castles and map available.

In regular RM 1v1 or open TG some of these units are higher risk to go for, because of their cost and it’s also harder to use them for raiding or pushing before getting all upgrades. The civs they belong to are not a boom civ but rather a fast paced civ relying on momentum. You don’t get that much time to free boom and mass them peacefully. And their civs also have easier alternatives thereby lowering the purpose.

There has been 8 S-tier and about 6 A and B tier open events since the DLC release. The number of times Viper or any other pro player went for Urumis as main army is ZERO.

[SirWiedreich]

@casusincorrabil

Some people said once they were OP.

As far as questionable takes go, this one was pretty understandable. It has such lopsided strengths that IMO you can still reasonably argue that it’s “OP” in limited melee contexts, but obviously not in general terms due to its food cost and ranged weakness. If you really want takes that have aged like milk in the sun, look at some of the other pre-release and early DOI threads, like people proposing buffs for Shrivamshas.

Either way, I don’t think discussion of whether or not the unit is “OP” is very meaningful or useful. I think the more useful question is whether it’s well designed, and I imagine that most of us can agree that it’s not. It’s not very viable early on, and at the point where it does become situationally useful, it’s pretty overbearing. It also doesn’t fill a need for the civ the way that Obuch does for Poles or Ghulam does for Hindus, and doesn’t really set itself apart from swordsman-line, apart from hitting much harder and being slightly squishier. Prime candidate for a rework in a way that few units are.

[GentleEvening5]

Urumi redesign should focus on making them Knight counter which is lite version of a teutonic Knight. with base speed of atleast 1.15 like ghuum or chakram throwers.

[casusincorrabil]

I just made a Unit concept how I think the new Urumi could look like.
I’ve seen your comment about the speed:

@GentleEvening5

base speed of atleast 1.15 like ghuum or chakram throwers.

But I decided to lower that to 1.1 in exchange for the ability of permanently attacking. WIth a speed of 1.15 and permantly attacking it would become tough even for Knights to inflict enough damage while urumis are retreating to their base.
The Urumi concept I made makes the Urumi a good anti-siege tool in the midgame. Also gives the civ a good raiding unit. The power of the unit shouldn’t be underestimated, they should be able to kill masses of militia units with ease. Knights and Archers though should do well in the midgame against them. Which is intended, as Dravidians have very good trash units they can use there against the enemy power units.

Where things then Change is in imp with the Elite and Wootz Steel upgrade. Then Urumi become monsters on the Battlefield that are basically only stoppable with good ranged units. And even there you need to be very careful because of the insane damage output of the Urumis. This is compensated by a quite high Gold cost of the Urumi which means the Dravidian player either burns quite fast through his Gold or has to make use of his trash units as addition.

Name	Urumi Swordsman	Elite Urumi Swordsman
Armor Class	Infantry	Infantry
Armor Class	Unique Unit	Unique Unit
Produced at	Castle	Castle
Production Time	10 s	8 s
Production Cost	50 F, 40 G	50 F, 40 G
HP	60	75
Speed	1.1	1.1
ROF	1.05	0.9
Attack	5 Melee	5 Melee
Atk Bonus	2 vs Standard Building	3 vs Standard Building
Atk Bonus	5 vs Siege Weapn	7 vs Siege Weapn
Range	-	-
Accuracy	-	-
Melee Armor	1	1
Pierce Armor	1	1
Benefits from	Infantry Upgrades, Wootz Steel	Infantry Upgrades, Wootz Steel
Upgrade	60 s	800 F,750 G
Special	Attacks permanently (also while moving)	Attacks permanently (also while moving)
Special	Deals 100 % Blast Damage in a .6 tiles Radius	Deals 100 % Blast Damage in a .75 tiles Radius

In addition I would change the effect of Medical Corps to:
“All healable units regenerate 20 % of their maximum HP per minute.”

This would finally bring that tech to a usable state. And epecially in the midgame where the civ is a bit lackluster due to the lack of Knights and Camels.

Also the Barracks tech cost reduction could be staggered to like 40 % (F), 64 % (C) and 78.4 % (Imp). A small tweak to reduce their MAA Domination but at the same time make it cheaper to go for Pikes and Halbs later on. Also opens the way for a champ switch which otherwise probably would be rather unfavorable given the power of the Urumi as long as there is still Gold access.

I think with these 3 tweaks the Civ would be in a good spot on an abundance of maps but less specialised for certain agressive map types.

[GentleEvening5]

The changes are pretty good. I’ll just give me inferences.

@casusincorrabil

“All healable units regenerate 20 % of their maximum HP per minute.”

Medical corps if applied to all land military units itself would be a huge change. Cross-bow with meat-shield of light cav in front will be able to handle Knights. But needing a castle to research that will require some high eco-bonus which is applicable on all maps. Because, then Dravidian player has to reach castle age first then build a castle to research the tech in time for Knight spam. For this version of medical corps to work, Dravidian Civ bonuses have to be changed to enable them to have a faster food production economy. I had done this re-work before and I could only come up with a couple of new eco bonuses to replace the existing 2 eco bonuses. You can check out the link for more analysis. With extra wood at the start of the game, Dravidian player can start surplus food production before any other civ without worrying about lumber camp or getting housed. The farm bonus is good to save a little bit of resource on horse collar and lumberjacks to employ more farmers. These will help Dravidian player reach castle age faster maybe as quick as mongols and do a castle. The farm bonus is longer lasting. So with this bonus, Dravidian player will have gas in tank to last during longer games too.

Dravidian Civilization bonuses

• [CHANGE] Receive 150 extra wood at the start of the game.
• [CHANGE] Farms have 2 times the food as regular farms. (2 x 175 food)

@casusincorrabil

the Barracks tech cost reduction could be staggered to like 40 % (F), 64 % (C) and 78.4 % (Imp)

I’m ambivalent on this change. This will definitely help castle age upgrades very much. But nerfing feudal age might not be popular with players when the civ is bottom tier.

@casusincorrabil

I decided to lower that to 1.1 in exchange for the ability of permanently attacking. WIth a speed of 1.15 and permantly attacking it would become tough even for Knights to inflict enough damage while urumis are retreating to their base.

The effort to rework Urumi is commendable. An unit that is on permanent attack stance is certainly unique. But the software application framework of AOE2 has its own limitations. A units cannot be doing 2 animations at the same time. Even the fastest attacking units like first ships can’t fire while moving. So it might be impossible to implement.