Aztecs and Mayans both having a UT for specifically skirmishers is pretty lame. Further, Mayans have a really good archer counter in their civ, in Eagles, and they really don’t want to be making skirmishers in most cases.
Why didn’t Mayans get a Halb UT? It’d help them more with lategame trash wars as a complement to their siege rams than the Skirm change and it wouldn’t make it so both non-slinger meso civs have a skirm UT. Not to mention, it’s not like the Mayans are just oozing anti-cavalry options - It’s just the halb.
I didn’t think Obsidian arrows needed to go, I think we should have more examples of UT’s with unique strengths, not less, but if we were going to trade it out, giving them a skirm UT (actually, literally every meso civ has a skirm UT now if you count andean sling, which you shouldn’t) seems extremely uninspired.
Arrows taking buildings down wasn’t good. With Saracen Team Bonus there is game(s) where Mayans with cheaper Archers andextra siege archers.
Mayans still strong civ. Resources Last Longer bonus effects boars, gold mines and stone mines too as I know. Wood isn’t that important but it can decrease walk time.
Also it’s useless as I understand in Spirit of the Law’s video because secondary Skirmisher projectile deals 1 damage.
About halbs, you can make unique tech for them for a weak civ. Mayans are good civ since Age of Conquerors where they came. If you compare release of Mayans with today’s Mayans, resources last longer bonus lowered (+20%>>+15%) and Elite Plummed Archer upgrade costs more (+200 Food more). Not big changes, Castle Age unique tech came in The Forgetten.
I would say the Tech is pretty good and attacks the Mayans main Problem: No Gold.
Meso Civs are very Gold depending, because of their lack of Light Cav.
This makes their Trash Wars pretty complicated, because both of their Trash Unit Options are weak vs Skirms. By giving them better Skirms they have an answer to this problem, which then the Enemy must Counter with Light Cav of its own, which the Meso Player can then Counter With Halbs.
Trash Wars are all about finding the right Unit Composition as well as Balance. To many Skirms if the Enemy goes heavy into Light Cav might lose the Fight while to many Halbs might lose it if the Enemy makes a lot of Skirms.
A Unique Tech to Halbs wouldnt solve this problem, except if its a Tech vs Skirms. But this would be pretty op, because it would remove the direct Trash Counter of Halbs, making it possiable to just Spam Halbs only in Trash Wars without a non Gold Counter.
Also Mayans are an Archer, not Infantery Civ, which would also mean a buff to their Infantery wouldnt suit the Civ Design.
All in all I would say the new UT is pretty strong, because it Attacks the Mayans biggest problem as a Meso Civ while still giving counter play.
Also keep in mind what i sayed before about Halb + Skirms both are bad to Skirms so a Tech that helps vs Skirms is good.
Skirms have high pierce armor, so additional Dmg on their Skirms wouldnt give them anymore Dmg, while an additional Arrow increases the Dmg to Skirms by 1, exactly what would be needed.
And ofc Eagels can counter Archers, but as said this is more about the trash war then anything else and Eagels cost a lot of Gold which makes them not usable in trash wars. Also Mayans dont have Champion, another common counter to Trash which Aztec and Inca have.
I agree it’s not a great tech. But OPsidian Arrows was broken especially considering community’s opinion against destroy building with archers mechanic.
I disagree. Mayans already have a very good late game thanks to their resources last longer bonus. You can sustain gold units more than your opponent. Also Mayan archers are cheap which means more gold for eagles.
Mayans could use a siege related bonus instead of this new UT for Obsidian Arrow replacement.
Mayans where one of the remaining S-Tier Civs along with Franks and new Tatars. Its not only supposed to be a tech change but also a nerf!
And in long games Mayans can run out of gold because Eagles take so much of it to produce. Now they have a better lategame option if they are in a pinch and can’t produce Eagles anymore.
While I thought Obsidian Arrows was quite fun to play I can fully understand the Devs decision here…
Why would they need better Siege? They have Siege Ram which is pretty good.
Also they dont rly need op SIege as well to their already insane Archers.
I agree Mayans have Gold for very long, which si why this new UT is a pretty huge Buff, because Mayans are already S Tier, have Gold for very long, and the only weakness was that when they finally run out of Gold they had no good Trash war, which they now have as well.
So the new UT might overbuff the Civ a bit, but makes sense if you wanna give them something useful
Also Obsidian Arrow was more of a troll Tech. It was pretty usles most of the Time, and rarely used in competetive 1v1.
You could only use it if you were already in a dominant Position, in which spending the Resources on a SW might make more sense, because a Mango is good vs Buildings as well vs enemy Mangos which counter your XBows.
No way that a weak secondary projectile on skirms make up for the lack of light cav at all.
Uh no? Also you seem to not take the tech seriously but to also think siege ram is enough for them. So logically you should see how siege ram + obsidian arrows was too much?
Possibly useless in very high tier of skill matches, but below that it was great, you could skip upgrading rams in many situations(Walls? what walls?) and spend the resources on more archers for your mindless archer spam deathball - I even used them to take out castles if I didn’t have a trebuchet handy and had just won a fight, you lose about 10 archers but so what? they’re discounted and you might lose 30 of them to a mangonel shot anyway if you don’t push them before they make one
I think replacing that with the second projectile on skirmishers is most definitely a nerf, +1 damage and it misses a lot, and if you’re out of gold and making skirmishers you’re probably in trouble and that isn’t going to be enough to pull you out of it - the other bonus helped you to end the game before it got to that point and made them the only civ that could theoretically make absolutely nothing but archers and still have a decent chance of winning a match, siege being optional is good for archers because it uses the exact same resources you need to spend on archers - if they aren’t fielding anything you need siege to kill then you don’t have to buy it just to take out their buildings after you kill their army
However Mayans were on the better end of the spectrum so I don’t think a nerf like this is going to kill them as a civ
well I obviously talk out of my perspective. I play around 1500 Elo and peacked at rank 997 on the leader, and in this Elo you nearly never saw Obsidian Arrow.
Also y a secondary Projectile makes them much better vs Skirms, because its always one additional dmg, which counters their high pierce armor which makes them good in Trash Wars. They can kill Skirms with Skirms and if the enemy makes Champions to counter their Trash they can sell a bit to get some of their Cheap Arbs to counter these.
I think this Change is a buff, because it removed a useless Tech for one which makes their weakest Game phase (out of Gold) stronger, giving them basicly no weak time in the Game.
They were always Top tier as long as they had Gold, but couldnt win Trash Wars because of what I sayed before. Now they can.
Also 1 more Dmg is pretty big. Just take Paladins vs Arbs against Cavaliers vs Arbs. Paladins perform much better just because of 1 more Pierce Armor.
And to remove Obsidian Arrow was good imo because in higher Elos it was useless and in lower Elos it might have been very frustrating to get your entire Base destroyed by XBows.
A Game Mechanic thats only useless or super frustrating dont makes an enjoyable Game expirience.
Mayans are still one of the strongest civs in the game, Obsidian Arrows were never used agaisnt buildings (obsidian was used for deep, bleeding cuts against flesh, it is too fragile to actually damage buildings, it is volcanic glass), and they were actually know for Spear Throwing.
The changes made Mayans use Siege for once, instead of just massing Crossbows/Arbalests and breaking everything.
They still are one of the strongest civs in the game, by a lot.
As said on an above average LvL they are probably even stronger now because noone used Obsidian Arrow, but the new Tech will be used in very long Games going into Trash wars.
So I will expect a nerf to Mayans in the future, considering they were already S Tier on the higher LvL before this Buff.
Obsidian arrows were very strong, I agree, but it wasn’t free. Having the tech means having a castle for which you won’t use the unique unit and upgrading the tech. If you’ve been given the time it’s a serious problem, but the time doesn’t come cheap.
How I see it, Mayans were just slightly overtuned before this and the skirmisher change isn’t a good complement. The are already going to use rams against archers and as their main siege option when gold runs dry, meaning this UT is practically only ever going to matter when you’ve lost anyway: Against a civ with better trash options (where the tech isn’t going to suddenly replace not having Hussar raids) or against a gold composition when your reserves run dry.
A Halb tech makes far more sense with their tree, with their intended gameplan, and with their (in my estimation) totally unnecessary removal of Obsidian Arrows, meaning they’ll need siege and the infantry to protect it from cav. I don’t think the Mayans will be top 5 anymore. That’s how much of a miss the skirm UT is. They should have got something else.
But it allowed Mayans to go pure Archers, which no other civ can do, and Mayans even have a big discount for them.
Mayan FU Siege Archers were grossly OP.
They never even had Halberds in real life, and it is clear the devs wamted to make a more accurate UT for Mayans.
Mayans were know for Spear Throwing, en masse, and in volleys.
Trying to justify accuracy of the history over the quality of the gameplay is one very surefire way to make bad gameplay.
I just lose any sense of reasonable discussion when someone says “muh history” in a game where Crossbows fire as fast as Archers as opposed to having a 20 second reload delay. It’s a foolish argument when the simplest “historical accuracy” things are being blatantly ignored for the quality of the gameplay.
No. No “Historical accuracy.” Mayan need fight gun horses and Elephants firing ballistas once every 2 seconds, not historically accurate feather-wearing speed demons.
I’m passed Obsidian arrows being a tech. They want it gone, they get it gone. I’m not on that.
Why does all three meso civs have a skirmisher UT? Why can’t one of them have a UT that isn’t for the skirmisher? Why now, does historical accuracy matter when it’s causing massive homogeneity issues so glaring that they can’t be missed by even a cursory glance?
Spear Throwing was an important part of warfare in the region.
It is also due to consistency, same way all American civs have Eagle Warriors, when the Eagle Knights were a sole Aztec Warrior Society, that was not shared with any other culture.
Take it the same way Persians and Cumans get Paladins, even though they never had even 1 of the 12 Paladins in History.
Devs just wanted to give them the strongest base Cavalry unit, due to design and balance reasons.
This game gave Genitours to the Berbers, and not to the Spanish and Portuguese, which actually WERE the Genitours. Do not think too much of it.
I very rarely saw them used, because its just not worth it. You need a Castle and the Tech itself, which are to many resources.
For the Resources of the Tech you can just get a SW and a Mango, which has much more value, bcs it can counter enemy Mangos, and a Castle is to expensive anyways. The Resources for a Castle can be put into additional TCs and eco, as well as Army.
On top of that the only reason tog et a fast Castle as Mayans is to get Plums, which werent effected by Obsidian Arrow.
As said I gues on lower Elos thats different, bcs lower Elo Player tend to mine by far to many Stone and invest into to many Castels, as well as dont use their Resources as efficent anyways, which means an investment into an inefficient Castle and UT might not be punished as much.
The new Tech has probably much more Value in Higher Elo games, and less in Lower Elo, which is pretty weird considering that Mayans are already considered an S Tier Arabia Civ on the Higher Elos before this Buff.
On the other hand giving them a new Useless tech just to not buff them would probably also been very weird, so I assume a Nerf for Mayans will come in the next Months.