Halb SO does not handle Mameluke Skirm. Mamelukes will kite the halbs and snipe the siege.
Tightening the formation to prevent the enemy from getting close doesn’t work against Mamelukes since they’ll just snipe the Onagers over the top.
Have you ever played against mass mameluke? What you’ve just suggested as a counter simply doesn’t work.
Also, monks seem okay, but Saracens have practically a full monk tree. And the civs capable of providing a full monk tree and siege onager are extremely few. If that’s your answer, even if it DID work, which it absolutely doesn’t in practice, it’s a limited composition that’s expensive and hard to reach.
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A monk max has 12 range, an upgraded Bombard Cannon has 12, Saracen has siege engineers so it makes 13. How could you convert them when your monks are back?
I think both armies counters themselves so who micro best wins. But Bombard Cannons makes easier to Saracen player
It simply works. Mamelukes can’t get close because Halberdiers destroy them. We never see Mameluke+Skirmisher vs the deadly Teutons on Arena 11.
The cheapest Trash spam destroy the useless Mamelukes. 11
You can get closer with your monkas. Onagers and Halbs will always protect him. Teutons can add their BBC too.
Problem is this is range war, who micro best wins.
Skirms has 8 range, Onagers 9 Onagers can protect Halbs if Halbs one tile front of them but Bombard Cannon has 13 range, it can easily get expensive Onagers while monks has 12 range, they want to reach Bombard Cannons but if player recalls Bombard Cannon back 4 tile from Skirms monks can be hitted by Skirms, Bombard Cannons going to have 9 range when enemy micros monks perfectly and Saracen player doesn’t sacrifice any skirms (I suggest sacrificing). 9 Onagers 9 Bombard Cannon. Completely cold war.
It’s a little bit too much Saracens for a topic for all civs.
No, it doesn’t. Even prior to Heresy and Faith, Saracen Mamelukes are not great value from a conversion state simply because Mameluke murders Mameluke. When you convert a knight, it’s got a real chance to snipe targets or be a nuisance. Without an extreme number of monks, Saracen Mamelukes simply do not care. The converted mameluke will be alive for even less time than the monk that converted it. All of that assumes you have good monks. I digress.
Halbs cannot force an engagement against Mamelukes. I can’t express how wrong you are on literally every count simply because you just ignore reasonable counterplay with “Halbs have bonus damage.”
Let me make this simple for you. Throwing axemen DO lose to Halb Onager. Onager actually kills the Axes. That’s why it works. Halbs do not kill the Mameluke, because unlike the situation where the Onager can attack the Axemen, the Halb can not attack the Mameluke. The Mameluke also is vastly more microable and Onagers do very little to help against Mameluke, even less than a traditional cavalry unit.
In order for your army to win, it requires the Mameluke player to stand still and be hit with Onager shots or stand still and be attacked by Halbs. This will not happen. In a real game, the Mamelukes will have a far easier time outmicroing the much slower composition. Even if you kept the onagers clean by throwing halbs at the Mameluke constantly (which is how you’d keep them off the onagers), you’ll be hemorrhaging resources just throwing them away. Halbs do absolutely nothing against Mamelukes unless piloted by an empty computer chair. Your proclamation that this is supposed to be a counter to the Mameluke is unreasonable, and even in theory it lacks a pretty fundamental analysis of the units.
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I convert Bombard Cannons.
They can easily force the engagement. 3 range with that Frame Delay is nothing.
SO still completely destroy them no matter what.
blah blah blah. You can write 10000 world, but any Memeluke comp is flattened by Siege+Halb and Bombard Cannons. Ask any Arena player how is the game played.
3 range is everything. It means that the Mameluke three tiles deep in the formation is helping to murder the halbs before they even get an attack off. The halb does nothing in this engagement except help to keep the onagers clean.
Another example: Kamayuks utterly murder Halbs and lose to Halb Onager. The reason they lose to Halb onager is that the Halbs can force a fight and the Onager does the work. Kamayuks have no bonus damage against Halbs, all they have is one range to work with, and that’s enough for them to utterly slaughter halbs, practically endlessly. Mamelukes do the exact same thing, except the onagers do absolutely nothing as long as the Mameluke player chooses not to engage them.
If the Mameluke player chooses to engage the Onagers, they’ve done so because your halbs are out of position, and you’ll be lucky if you don’t lose them for free. The bonus damage on the halbs is utterly irrelevant against someone who will use the mameluke properly and at that point it’s 100% about you keeping your Onagers alive, which is a task completely down to micro. When it comes to micro, the more mobile force has the edge. Always. Ask any top player how much mobility matters in terms of micro potential.
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It seems that Italians are perceived as the worst civ. I cannot disagree.
I see some people are still voting Turks. I have been a huge supporter for buffing them, but I feel they are fine atm.
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Hi, I think some changes are needed:
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Portuguese: grant a team bonus according to its characteristics of civilization (docks works 20% faster).
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Teutons: grant a new unit in the barracks (imperial halberd, landsknecht), and team bonus (line of sight is shared whit the team starting in the dark age).
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Byzantines: grant bloodlines and replace fire ship attack 25 % faster by wheelbarrow upgrades cost gold and don’t cost food.
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And maybe include a new civ: the Papal States with a unique unit called crusader (cavalry unit) and their economics technologies should be focus to the market. Units converted by an enemy monk or missionary die instead of changing to the enemy’s color (heresy). Bonus team: units resist conversion.
bye and happy hollydays
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Go watch tatoh using saracens it would be really interactive while you learn and see the market abuse in action, even mbl used them for smurfing, feudal build order but with castle age min 18+xbow+2 is unstoppable, that BO is very common in 2600 tgs, xbows that melts buildings and kill everything during that time window is clearly OP.
Lol people talking about sarracens and mamelukes.
And for the main topic in arabia 1v1 the only 2 civs i think need buffs are Indians and Spanish.
Indians lack good options in mid-late game, giving them arbalest again would be nice and maybe changing the imp tech to something more useful.
And Spanish don’t have that much going for them, tower rush and conqs are really not good options anymore, and lack any bonus that helps the cavalry play… something like military units cost -10% food would help them…maybe.
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Italians are very close to being good, I think they’re solid. That being said, it’s still atrocious how the only bonuses for the Elite Genoese upgrade are +5 HP, +2 bonus damage against cav, and training speed. That costs 1650 resources. 900 food, 750 gold, for 5 HP and +2 bonus damage against cav. That is a miserable upgrade.
I don’t think the Italians need a lot of help but that upgrade needs Jaesus.
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I don’t think any civ need a big buff. Some of them could get small buff (spanish) or small rework to make some civ less one map-type oriented (italians).
Dev won’t take this pool as a proof that some civ need a buff. There’s a large difference between a ‘feeling’ that a civ is bad and a ‘truth’ that a civ is bad - just look at some civ winrate difference between player level
edit: didn’t wanted to say ‘one-dimensional’ oops
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Italians aren’t one dimensional. They have good Navy, Infantry, Cavalry, Gunpowder and Archery at the same time.
didn’t wanted to say ‘one-dimensional’ oops - edited. They are oriented one map because they are super weak on land due to lack of land bonus. I don’t think a civ should have more than one water oriented bonus because it implies it’ll be bad on land (except viking because wheelbarow and handcard are super strong but mainly land-map oriented.
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I think that the Italians more than a buff they need a rework.
Here is what I suggest on a dedicated topic:
- Age up bonus buffed to 20% cheaper but it’s also researched 20% faster
It’s basically the time of a vill, so you don’t just get the food for 2 vills in dark age, but you also have the time to train one more before clicking to feudal, so your eco will be a lot better in feudal (a bit of a worse version of mayans) or you may hit feudal a bit sooner, but with more food. Similar thing in castle age and imp.
- Dock techs nerfed to 33% cheaper, but docks works 33% faster
I know it seem a buff on water, but actually having 33% with only 20% cheaper age up it’s a lot resources less (check them if want), here the faster dock help to compensate.
It is also a buff on hybrid maps, where it’s really important to have fishing out sooner as you can, and those are maps where italians should shine (but they don’t).
Then other small changes may be:
- condos get +1 bonus damage vs EEW
- GC in castle age train in 16s (2 less than now)
- Elite GC get +1 base range
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Saracens don’t do that well in tournaments, they are just another civ.
And about Mamelukes, I also understand they are extremely powerful… but we should also consider that they are never created in tournaments. I apologize if there is an exception, but I have not really seen them in serious games.
That also merits a discussion about buffing them a bit, or at least promoting their inclusion. I think the problem is that they are too painful to lose with such a high gold cost. Also, Age 2 games nowadays feature many fights against massed ranged units (archers/skirms), and also raids under TC fire. Mamelukes don’t do that well in either situation, because they are too expensive.
In the end, the extreme ability of Mamelukes to counter Knights pushed them away from traditional games, because they needed substantial weaknesses to avoid being OP. Perhaps reducing their bonus against Cavalry could be a good option, so they can be more easily included in the game without being game-breaking.
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If you guys think Saracens need a buff just vote for them.
You are right about that but they need an early game boost.
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They actually miss a decent land bonus. That is huge. In addition the elite upgrade is a joke, but what they really miss is something to be played. I like @DoctBaghi 's idea, there are also other proposals, a lot actually.
Totally agree
Yeah he meant map-oriented. They have a bad design in this sense, their bonuses are extremely map-oriented. Even the age up discount, decent on water but underwhelming on land. And this is very bad considering it is the only land bonus if the civ.
I agree. Saracens are a solid civ, but their UU is not. It works only in scenarios with a lot of gold. But this does not mean that the civ needs a buff. Aztecs have a weak UU, but their civ bonuses have ensured the top 1 for 20 years…