So, as the title sayd, i do not get the design reason of this tech.
First, shotel Warrior were never really bad, they are amazing glass cannone units, not amazing overall, but better than many infantry UU imho
Second, ethiopians were already plenty strong, with royal heirs being their only weak point that could be improved, but they did not needed a new torsion engine level tech
Third they already had pikeman for free and FU infantry and halb, so already equipped against cav
So why now they are getting good camels, great shotels against cav? How are ethiopians supposed to lose? If you make infantry, they have TOP 3 archers in the game easily, if you make archers, unless you are britons or mayans, you are toasted, and if you make cav, you are gonna deal with free pikeman, but also shotel that trade exceptionally well and strong camel too.
They also have the usual amazing siege
So i’m a bit worried that this tech could launch ethiopians in the pre-nerf hindustanis territory or strenght, were they could simply counter everything
But maybe i’m missing something, and i’m curious to hear other opinions on this, cause i really think ethiopians were the last civ to buff imho
“Devs don’t need reason, devs need Giiiiirlfriend!”
Edit:
Honestly I don’t think this change is really impactful. Wasn’t really needed but devs probably thought “when we make pikes cheaper the civ that gets them fro free needs a compensation.” You see similar stuff they did for Goths and Malians which had good Infantry before but didn’t got Gambesons for obvious reasons.
i think there are other civ changes that can turn out “problematic”.
The most obvious for me is Incas. They now can do the “Byzantine special” with Towers, but better. And their Kamayuks got a huge buff aswell. Be prepared for the Incan domination guys!
The next one is Goths which now got a meaningful hunt bonus. This makes their vill rush and early agression potential even stronger, potentially strong enough to even overcome the kinda “midgame weakness” of the civ. Don’t forget that Goths also benefit from all the different Tech changes in the Barracks. They are very dangerous now.
Third are Dravidians which mght not necessarily become “OP” in general, but the buff to siege pushes them even more into the immobile “snowball” civ they already were before. Maybe devs want to try out if they can compensate the lack of mobility in that way. But I doubt it. There are just some maps where you need mobility and others where you don’t and it’s very obvious where this civ can shine and where not.
Then we have Lithuanians which obviously had their entire identity changed. I think they are now after the Cumans the best “booming” civ in the game. And not only that, their midame bonus is actually very flexible. For me it looks like Lith don’t have a real “weakness” anymore.
Then we have Malians, that got also a double buff. It’s not quite clear to me were this will bring them, but I think they can do well. Malians is very hard to predict cause of the “versatile” options they have. I don’t think they will immidiately turn op on the most played maps like arabia or arena. But they can become especially dangerous on maps with a lot of gold now.
And lastly we have Gurjaras. Gurjaras received a quadruple nerf. Which is weird as they didn’t even were as abnoxious as they used to be. The only left “issue” with the civ was that Shrivamshas performed too well against ranged units which weren’t archers. But devs increased cost of Kshatriyas, Increased Cost of Shrivamsha AND also made them hit slower. But the biggest “nerf” for the civ is even one other: The Infantry buffs! Yes right. Mostly the cost reduction of the Pikeman upgrade. Cause Gurjaras really don’t like the pike/siege combo. And this is now easier to get to for all other civs. I don’t know where this will bring Gurjaras to, but I don’t think they will see lot of love in the upcoming future.
These are the civs that saw changes that can turn out problematic. Ethiopians won’t really change much with that. They don’t really depend on the performance of SHotels and Heavy Camelsagainst mounted units. Just a “nice to have” feature, but nothing really meaningful.
As having no Bloodlines and Plate Barding Armor, the camels don’t really get stronger with this new effect but rather do their job more decently, although people probably still won’t use it when no cavalry tech is invested first.
Shotels are better against mounted units, but I agree that Ethiopians will still heavily rely on Halberdiers (or Skirmishers) instead of Shotels if they do encounter a lot of cavalry (or cavalry archers), so this doesn’t really change things much.
So far in my opinion, this new effect is some kind of little candy, nice but not really impactful, and probably won’t encourage any new strategies.
I’ve previously suggested that the effect of this UT be changed to make the team’s infantry UUs +10% HP, because I want to encourage infantry UUs to be used more. But apparently this opinion was not adopted.
Ethiopians really that strong as you claim? I never see pros pick Ethiopians in tournament these days. Only time is Hera vs Liereyy in Grand melee tournament and Hera lose with Ethiopians.
Ethiopians have mediocre eco into narrow tech tree only focusing on archers which is very predictable and easy to counter. They were popular in the past but the winrate in tournament was really bad.
Also after archer nerf, meta is more evolved around Cavarly/Camel civs and you would want to play civ at least have decent hussar line/Cavalier. I honestly think Ethiopians need more significant buff.
The new effect is kind of weird thematically and I don’t think it fits the identity of Shotels or Ethiopians particularly well. A new UU could have been designed around the idea of cav resistance, and Shotels or even camels could have been buffed in a more standard way. But the new effect is certainly more interesting than the old one, and I do like that it makes their UU a little less niche.
To answer the OP though, I think the devs put it in bc they felt Ethiopians had been power crept a bit and wanted to show off a new way of using armor classes.
I like the Shotel Warrior portion of the changes, but the camel portion seems out of place. For a more thematic fit, I’d have preferred that the tech affects all of their infantry units instead (Shotel Warrior, Halberdier, Two Handed Swordsman, Condotierro).
By the testing i made, shotel now trade about even with cav (knights/cavaliers) where previously they would hard lose, and being fast they can give cav serious problems in terms of cost efficiency
Then you have Amazing siege and Archer yourself to counter the (painful) missile switch of the cav civ
The +3 cav armor is much better than a mere +3 bonus damage, so for shotels is better than chieftains for example, which already is not a bad tech at all
I don’t know if they needed this kind of compensation for just 55 food change on pikeman upgrade. Also there is an history of far worse civs than ethiopians getting heavier nerfs with no compensation, so i doubt they did It on this purpose
They’re not OP, even with the new patch. You can counter with elite skirm + mangonels in castle. Then if they transition into shotels + siege in the late game, you can add knights (or champions) + BBC to your skirms + mangonels. Shotels have low armour, they rely heavily on large numbers.
From Ornlu’s video, they are just as good as generic against knight line and CA line. Elephant units and other UUs were not tested.
I just think devs just want to shift #1 & #2 Archer civs from Britons and Mayans to Ethiopians. I’m sure Ethiopians will better than Britons in 1v1 after this change.
Problem is now shotel beat knight in cost efficiency, you can’t really say “counter shotel with knights” no more. You are kinda forced to go onager/archers, which is something ethiopians have better than most civs
You don’t tech into cavalrier to counter shotels. Either you have already cav out and then you have the numbers advantage. When you want to “counter” shotels and don’t already have ranged units out, you add defences and/or the standard ranged units you see against infantry.
Like archers or hand cannons.
And guess what, the interaction with this stuff hasn’t changed at all.
Ethiopians were upper mid tier pre-patch, after this patch they probably come slightly behind since they don’t have Champion tech.
Relax Ethiopians are fine, they will die to full Skirm just like always. One trick pony civ, has OK power spikes that can give you the victory, but also can bounce off of Skirm wall hard.
For sure even with stronger Camels and Shotels they won’t come close to pre-nerf Hindustanis.
Also Shotels won’t trade well vs cavalry after this buff, they just won’t insta-die.
But they are not picking Ethiopians in tournament.
But pure archer play is almost out-of-meta these days. Cavalry or Camels or strong monks are need to become competitive civ. Ethiopians are only better than Vietnamese/Koreans, which is bottom-tier in open map.
Already Longsword can cost-effectively match with knight but how many Longsword we see in castle age?
Even some other infantry have better stat/versatility such as Obuch, Urumi is not used frequently. Shotel is not even close to that level.
