I’ve just been looking at these units compared to aztec warrior priests. A warrior priest is apparently worth 2 villagers and a priestess 1.5.
I tested the rate they spawn at by doing 3 aztec priests dancing vs 4 priestesses (equal villager worth) and I noticed that the next warrior priest spawns in 66 seconds yet the next priestess spawns in 102 seconds. There’s exactly a 35% longer training time for priestesses because I sent the age 3 card that improves training speed for priestesses by 35% and the next would spawn in 66 seconds same as the aztec with 3 priests but without sending an age 3 card.
This seems way too slow especially as the aztec start with a priest and have an age 2 card for 3 more as well as several age 1 cards that give additional priests or boost warrior priest effectiveness while dancing. Both units have the same cost and build/kill xp and heal at the same rate so it seems odd that 1 takes 35% longer to spawn the priestess also occupies 2 population and the aztec priest 0 population.
The convert ability of priestesses is largely useless and never seen so that alone is a hard reason to justify a 35% higher train time for a less effective unit on the plaza.
Ironically, the fastest way to get Priestesses is going to be allying with the house of Phanar and training them from an Athos Monastery (which is a place where women are forbidden).
To be fair, I saw a game where it was used to convert a couple of Hussars that were trying to raid too close to the Plaza. But other than that case it’s essentially useless and also makes no sense thematically. If any unit should have this ability, it should be the Missionary (and Missionaries should be available for Portugal too).
Healers are even worse value in term of ville seconds to produce for their gather rate on the CP, and provide less utility. Their cost amounts to more than 3x what non-native civs pay for their healers and their gathering bonus is even getting nerfed to 20% from 25% in the upcomming patch, so it would be nice to see both units train time reduced so they aren’t so very costly.
1 Healer takes 539 ville seconds to produce.
1 Healer = 1.25 ville equivilant on CP
1 Warrior priest takes 404 ville seconds
1 WP = 2 ville equivilant on CP
1 Priestest takes 631 ville seconds
1 Priestess = 1.5 ville equivilant on CP
Converting unit is huge, if you ever played aoe2. You can’t let inca mass priestess too fast. The 5 priestesses card in age3 is very powerful, in age 4 you can age up with them again. If opponent send 5 spahi or tokala soldiers or something very powerful, priestess is a great counter.
The only use for them other than being on the plaza is converting any raiding cav that get too close. I get what you’re saying but for them to convert in time you need to waste an age 3 card just for that, add to that the incredibly slow spawn rate and you’ll almost never see it actually work. If it were popular to do this then people would just keep their high value units out of priestess range, you get more value in a fight leaving them at base on war dance.
Inca has been considered the evil civ by European players for more than a year. The hate towards inca is ridiculous. So all parts of inca has to be weak and trash, unfair
One thing for certain is priestess conversion should have global ping a la aoe2 because sneak converting is lame, buff the rates and give a global wololo or something so its playable and also counter playable.
Loosing 2 uhlan while re-macroing with 0 indication or pings is not fun, need some ability to react before any further buff.