Pretty much as the title says. What’s the reason why this unit lack an Imperial upgrade? Incas also are not that strong to not deserve this kind of upgrade
I know the UT buff their armor but still there are other UU that are buffed by a UT and still have Imperial upgrade, so i’m curious ti know the design reason on this
On a side note, i think any unit deserve a Imperial upgrade, including Skirmishers and maybe even Monk. Obviously appropriately balanced. What do you think?
Slingers are already very strong within their role - probably more cost effective than hand cannons vs. infantry, and more accessible. They also scale somewhat well due to fletching line + ballistics applying to them, unlike hand cannoneers. Slingers definitely don’t need an Elite upgrade, and infantry in general are not dominant enough to justify creating more units that perform extremely well against them.
Incas are not beyond consideration for a small buff, but IMO it should be something eco or Eagle related. I’m much more open to the idea of a generic Imp Skirm upgrade. As for monks, they theoretically are buffed sufficiently by the large number of monastery techs that benefit them, making an “Elite Monk” superfluous in most cases, and OP in the case of civs that already have strong monks.
I think considering the Gold cost having elite slingers with +5 HP and +1 ATk would make sense.
They don’t need to get more bonus damage, they are one, if not the best anti-infantry unit. But the low base atk makes them really bad vs everyting else in the lategame.
Should be kinda cheap upgrade also.
Considering that incas are so Gold dependent as a versatile civ, I would propose some kind of Gold Related bonus. Can’t be the Malian flat 30 % more Gold. But maybe a constant slow gold trickle that scales with the ages (5 / 10 / 20 / 50 G / min eg).
Slingers already have a good base dmg output. Iirc it’s 5 + 10 bonus damage, however unlike Handcannoneers they fire much faster (affected by Ballistics and TR too!). In terms of raw DPS, Slingers are actually not too far behind HC (22.5 vs 27 vs infantry, respectively), and conveniently need no Chemistry and are available in Castle Age.
Slingers also fire faster which leads to less overkill and better microability.
But in imp the low base atk hurts vs verything that isn’t infantry - and they cost still a lot of gold which incas are already heavily dependent on…
Other idea: What about tweaking their cost to 45 F / 25 G? Then they are even slightly nerfed in castle age but can be used more efficient in imp without a need for an upgrade.
the whole idea of Meso is all-in strats/double gold comps. Wouldn’t touch this aspect. Else you turn them into a more bland version of Byzantines where they start playing something weird like pike skirm.
Gold is not even a rare resource in Castle age, it’s literally the best resource to spend on a unit. Meso being gold-based is what gives them a chance in spite of lacking Knight-line, we saw other civs like Dravidians, how trash they are once you remove Knights.
I think it’s not good for any civ to be so highly dependent on gold.
The issue with that is that the civs are on a timer with this.
Especially as the mesos lack a trash raiding unit, they have really hard time to have a comeback when they are behind in trash wars.
For me every civ should have options at every stage of the game, that’s good design.
Leave it to the players if they want to put themselves on a timer. Don’t let the civ decide this for us. It’s one of these aspects in a strategy game, one of the basic strategic decisions.
And this aspect is one of the main reasons I don’t like the mesos. I want to have that decision and not be taken for me.
I think it adds flavor, in the end, you don’t HAVE TO play Incas if you don’t like them. If you prefer an easy-on-gold civ, there is stuff like Byzantines or Vikings I guess.
in 1v1, this timer is virtually never depleted, even in Imp, most Meso civs stand their fair chance. It’s also somewhat unfair to say that the civs are gold-intensive, because they can put out the same number of soldiers as other civs, in terms of gold. For example, Eagle Warriors might not be as strong as Knights 1v1, but they also cost 50g (nearly Crossbow price) instead of 75g. This allows them to be very light on eco, and much like Crossbows you can do all sort of all-ins or 3 TC booms that are impossible to do while pumping Knights.
no I don’t think so, I think a game where every civ has a chance at every stage in the game in every matchup, would be a very boring game. If you don’t like the idea that meso lose when out of gold, you can play something like Spanish or Magyars, you get excellent late game but also all the drawbacks. No civ is perfect.
if you don’t think power spikes, and favorable/unfavorable civ matchups belong in the game, then probably to you only something like Byzantines vs Byzantines or Persians vs Persians is fun. I, however, call that boring.
and I want Burgundians to get access to Steppe Lancer, and Tatars to get Paladin. In the end, you gotta realize, these are just personal bias. The better question to ask is, do these civs make sense from a design perspective? And in case of Incas, the answer is yes, they have a solid eco bonus, and power spikes and options here and there. Their main caveat compared to other meso civs is that they can add Slingers in Castle age, so vs Incas, going Longswords (which is already generally ill-advised) is not an option at all.
Yeah i was imagining somthing like that, definitely not additional bonus vs infantry since they already shred them, but at least their base damage in Imperial would be 5. Still less than arbalest but a bit better vs other units
Yeah Monk definitely not “need” an upgrade but maybe a “bishop” upgrade could incorporate some techs, but it’s not important.
Imperial skirms i think It would be a very healthy addition to the game,aking the skirms like less dependant on blacksmoth upgrade to do its job, Just like halberds are
Weren’t Slingers nerfed by -1 Attack because they became cost effective to fight vs Archers as well, or something like that? They were beating Arbalesters one on one, if I remember correctly.
Incas have very effective counters, not too unlike Gurjaras. The main problem for Incas with that design is that they aren’t as mobile. But I wouldn’t say Slingers need a buff, at most only HP. They are extremely vulnerable to Siege, which is most often paired with Infantry, so they end up getting countered themselves. You can’t comfortably go Eagles to counter the Siege either, since well… Infantry chews them up.
But I’m pretty sure that Slingers are the strongest Infantry counter unit in the game. Hand Cannoneers only have an edge over them because they have strong base attack, so they’re better generalists.
One advantage Slingers have over Arbalesters is that they have bonus damage against Rams. Against Siege Ram it ends up only being +1, but if I understand this correctly that still means they’ll still do two damage against Siege Rams, while it is four against Battering (and three against Capped) Rams. Arbalesters will struggle against Ram pushes much more than Slingers do. Perhaps they could have a small bonus against Siege in general, so they can deal with Mangonel-line easier?
They were same as good as crossbows vs knights, now they need 60 shots to kill one in castle age.