You CANNOT have a unit which ignores pierce armour without destroying balance

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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You are missing the point. Most people agree that gbetos are pretty good, but if they were broken, how would you fix them? Just lower their melee damage, and they are good. They will do less damage to high melee armour targets, and you have a decent unit.

Now, compare that to the the armenian archers. How do you balance them if they are too powerful, without making them feel too weak?

You can’t. Pierce armour is a tool for balance. This is what accounts for the difference between knights, camels, huskarls and eagles wrt pierce damage. If you lower their pierce damage, they will have a much harder killing high HP units with low pierce armour. If you increase their damage, they will kill everything. Fire rate doesn’t change anything about this.

Once this unit is in, you cannot have a good anti-archer melee unit, without nerfing it to the ground.

This is what @AriesXBox90 is also failing to get. I’ll also address HCs below.

That 65% accuracy is extremely important. HCs are basically even against arbs when going against each other with equal resources.

More importantly, pierce armour is still a valuable tool in balancing HCs. High pierce armour cavalry like paladins, and tarkans will wipe the floor with HCs. Since they have such a low accuracy, the missed shots will do half damage - pierce armour. This is not even close to the armenian archer.

This is why I call them broken archers. Not just because they are OP, but because they are mathematically and mechanically broken.

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Base attack and base range+ rof are tools to balance composite bowmen I think? Currently, I would not say this UU is balanced as frame delay/ movement speed/ bonus dmg is not known yet. But at least we can give it a try before asking for any change.

So when facing any unit with 2 base PA with full armor upgrades, composite bowmen takes half of the no of shots compared to arbalest. Hussar, champion with gambeson, cavalier etc. Composite bowmen should be slightly inferior if factor in rof and range. Siege and Unit with 1 base PA with full armor upgrade, arbalest should have advantage.

When facing FU paladin
Arbalest deal 3 dmg per shot.
It takes 180/3= 60 shots to die

Composite bowmen deal 8 dmg per shot
It takes 180/8= 23 shots to die (with almost twice slower rof as arbalest)

Hand canonneer deal 10 dmg per shot
It takes 180/18= 18+ shots to die

Non elite Gc deals 8 dmg per shot
It takes 23 shots to die (same no of shots but with twice faster firing rate)

But gc is not broken as it is bottle necked by castle production time. Plus, I believe evaluating unit vs paladin is not the only criteria of brokeness.

It depends. If your unit can always at the max range, then accuracy is important. But if distance is closer or mass goes up, accuracy is not a big issue. And I dont think shooting at max range is always the case.

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In theory they should have a hard time killing high HP units with low pierce armor. But I don’t see Camels really counter them. So practically they will be rather equally good versus everything. So the unit will not be easily balanced just by the presence of counters. In order to make them weaker you have to also target the strength. It can be a problem, but I am not sure how big of a deal it is. Maybe it could be balanced via very weak defensive stats.

Once this unit is in, you cannot have a good anti-archer melee unit, without nerfing it to the ground.

Is your thought here that an anti-archer units has to be good against 100% of all archers? Imo being good against the generic archers is enough. Archers are also Anti-Infantry even though Huskarls exist. Also the anti-trash characteristic of Champions exists despite Winged Hussars existing. Special units are allowed to break usual counter principals. And it is not useful for understanding the game, when we deny that such counter principles exist at all, because of such exceptions.

Is the damage of missing shots halved before or after armor subtraction?

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You keep saying this, but it’s complete nonsense. I would’ve granted to you if it was just huskarls, but ghulams exist. So do eagles. Malian champions, generic champions against crossbows/arbs without bracer, urumis eat archers once up close.

You can still say “Archers counter infantry” if you want. But that’s a silly, reductive take.

Camels don’t counter archers in general, so this is pointless to begin with.

So yes. UU anti-archer should do well against ALL archer units.

IIRC, it’s half damage-armour, but the point stands even if it were half of damage

No, it isn’t. It is mathematically impossible to make a low HP anti-archer work, while also making the archer decent against high HP units. I guess the best you can do is give the unit a fixed 3/4 damage (after all upgrades), with a higher range.

Yeah, but you were the one who evaluated them against paladins. Compare how they do against paladins to how they do against units like hukarls, champions, camels, etc.

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This entire argument is a whataboutism. Something else is broken doesn’t mean you allow this other broken thing.

It’s not a matter of if it beats or not, it’s a matter of whether it feels fair, and fun to play against, or not.

You are missing the point.

A rule with a dozen exceptions is not a rule. Halbs are the only infantry unit which are completely countered by archers with 0 micro. There might also be like 1 or 2 other UU. Huskarls, gulams, and Eagles counter archers. With woad raiders and urumis, the question is if they can get close to the archers or not (it depends). Even samurais can deal with UU archer units. You can’t make such a blanket statement. It’s like saying “infantry counter cavalry”, when that’s also not always true.

I addressed this in the post. Melee armour is a totally different beast compared to pierce armour. They aren’t comparable.

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You CANNOT have a unit which ignores pierce armour without destroying balance - You can if you just want, the question is will that unit be any good after that. There are lot of things you can change: movement speed, rate of fire, range, base damage, accuracy, HP, armor, price and training time. Even long training time can make them extremely hard to mass, if you also make them far more expensive than crossbows.

Crossbow training time is 27 second if their training time will be 30-40 then that would make them pretty hard to mass, since they also need castle which is more expensive.

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Wait, Arent you evaluating against paladin? HC arent really that bad vs paladin if they dont get surrounded by paladin given meatshield in front.

I did compare composite bowmen/arbalest against hussar/champion. But I didnt compare composite bowmen to HC against any infantry as HC has bonus dmg. So I didnt think I need to compare.

Composite bowmen do 8 dmg per shot to any unit.

For FU heavy camel (0 base PA)
Arbalest do 6 dmg per shot.
It needs 140/6= 24 shots to kill (rof 1.7)

Composite bowmen do 8 dmg per shot.
It needs 140/8= 18 shots to kill (rof >=3)

Hand canonneer do 13 dmg per shot
140/13= 11+ shots to kill (rof 3.45)

For champion with gambeson
Arblest do 4 dmg per shot
70/4= 18 shots to kill

Composite bowmen do 8 dmg per shot
70/8= 9 shots

HC do 21
70/21= 4 shots

For elite huskarl
Arbalest just do minimal dmg

Composite bowmen 8
70/8= 9 shots

HC 17
70/17= 5 shots

Composite bowmen is no match of HC against any high PA infantry while no advantage vs low PA unit.

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A key component in making Ghulams such a hard counter to Archers was, in addition to being quite fast, that they made it impossible to hide in nooks. Nay, it was a devastating error to do so. You could not use any edge a foot archer offered effectively.

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You are vastly underestimating the lack of accuracy of HCs, and their low fire rate.

I’ll run the numbers later to figure out the exact details. But these things are better than generic HCs, absolutely.

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Oh actually HC got its accuracy inproved to 75% not 65% and less dispersion. Plus the projectile speed is faster than arrows. The video was out before the buff. HC has actually improved a lot.

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Of course it is reductive.

The point is that you say it is a problem if an Archer counters Huskarls, but it is not a problem if Infantry counter Archers. But that Throwing Axemen counter Huskarls is no problem, just because it does not have the Label “Archer”? And what about Slingers they even have the label “Archer” and counter Huskarls pretty hard? Where is the outcry about Gbeto, Throwing Axemen, Chakrams, Mameluke? Huskarls have at least still bonus damage against Composite Bowmen.

You say that some thing is supposed to counter something else, and that there should not be exceptions. But such exceptions are the reality in the game and I’m not sure if that is really a balance problem.

IIRC, it’s half damage-armour, but the point stands even if it were half of damage

The idea of Gunpowder is still to overpower pierce armor. And something like Malian Champions don’t really benefit from their pierce armor. They take 60% less damage from Arbalest, but just 14% less damage from Hand canoneer because of the civ bonus. These 14% are useless in my experience (even if it is a bit more because of missing shots).

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Projectile speed doesn’t matter that much when you are fighting in mass. It only matter when are dodging. Even with these changes, my point still stands.

Absolutely, what do you mean? Pikemen countering cavalry is not problem, but pikemen shouldn’t counter milita line, just because they lack the label “cavalry”. Yes, that’s how things work.

None of these do pierce damage, what on earth is this argument? These aren’t archers, they are infantry and cavalry. Sligers are anti-infantry unit. They counter huskarls as much huskarls counter them. Broken archers aren’t an anti-infantry unit. They are an anti-everything(except siege) unit. They will even do well against archers as long as you have a front line unit.

Oh hey, see, it matters. It might only reduce 1-2 points of damage, but it matters in large scale fights. More importantly, it also matters of units with even higher p.a. Like tarkans and sicilian cavalier.

I don’t know how many times I need to repeat the point for you to address it directly.

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The type of weapon Pikemen use should do bonus damage against cavalry units, but if they overall counter them is a different question. Pikemen do not counter Cavalry Archers.

Finally it is not about labels but about logic. A special type of arrow that pieces traditional pierce armor is not unthinkable imo.

None of these do pierce damage, what on earth is this argument? These aren’t archers, they are infantry and cavalry. Sligers are anti-infantry unit.

If Slingers aren’t Archers why do they take Huskarls bonus damage against Archers? Should this be changed in your opinion?

They counter huskarls as much huskarls counter them.

Huskarls are terrible against them imo.

Oh hey, see, it matters. It might only reduce 1-2 points of damage, but it matters in large scale fights. More importantly, it also matters of units with even higher p.a. Like tarkans and sicilian cavalier.

Lets say Pierce armor is 33% as effective against Hand Cannoneers as against Archers. That 67% of the effectiveness of pierce armor is missing against HC is no problem for you, but that the final 33% is ineffective against Composite Bowmen is a big problem for you. That does not really make sense for me. If you can make pierce armor mostly useless, why not entirely?

I don’t know how many times I need to repeat the point for you to address it directly.

You may have a point here, but it is a different point than the Anti-Archer unit argument. One argument is that the units has maybe no counter at all, and is equally good against everything. The other argument is that it may have entirely different counters than normal Archers. I agree that having no counters may be a problem, but having different counters wouldn’t be a problem imo.

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I’m not, I’ve already shown that your idea of “Unit which ignores pierce armour and deals very high base damage to most things will destroy balance” is incorrect with the Gbeto example. I even already told you how I would “balance them if they are too powerful”, which since you somehow missed is:

I have even gone through the agonising pains of showing how Gbetos even have near same exact damage interactions as the Compo will have. To rephrase myself since it seems like you didn’t read my last response, “Against a Bonus less Civ in IMP with every single unit Generic FU, Gbetos will always deal atleast 4 more damage compared to a Compo Across the entire unit roster”, Compos don’t even get their Armour piercing against Siege and Buildings, they will even be LESS capable of dealing high universal damage to near everything than Gbetos are.

Like I could waffle on endlessly but the point is made and I don’t want to constantly repeat myself and @AriesXBox90 . Your position that the fundamental gimmick of Compos cannot be balanced well is disproven by Melee Ranged Units in general, but especially the Gbeto. There is no need to completely remove or nerf the gimmick, this is just like when people first thought Wootz Steel would be broken but it turned out to be worse Garland Wars for a worse overall civ than Aztecs, you hear “Ignores Armour” freak out and miss the mathematical realities that show what it strength truly is.

And of course this isn’t me saying Compos are garbage as me suggesting a nerf shows, this is me saying they’re not nearly as broken you and others imagine them to be

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Good job on missing the point my dude. That’s fine, I don’t expect to convince everybody. You didn’t disprove anything based on the example of gbetos, but keep believing what you like, idc.

I am glad that @AriesXBox90 is convinced of the main point though.

They do, especially on closed maps and when you can’t afford to micro.

Never said that slingers aren’t archers. They are functionally HCs.

Because or isn’t mostly useless. To illustrate this exaclty, I’ll need a lot of example and show you the numbers. I can’t do that right now.

Not different counters, nullify the function of a UU. This is also why I don’t like cataphract-kamayuk matchup.

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No one complains about these things, some of which have been in that state for over twenty years. And they’re not problematic because they’re broken in a very niche setting that’s meant to bring out all these units which are otherwise almost impossible to use.

Let me rephrase the question this way. How does it matter whether if its fun to play as Mayans against this civ on Arena? Its not fun to play 1v1 as Mayans against Hindustanis in a closed map either. Pick something else. Mayans are not a civ meant for Arena anyways. You can pick over a dozen civs and be comfortable against Armenians. Why potray something as overpowered by nitpicking something niche and weak in a particular setting?

I’m not. The way you’ve been arguing is how is it fair that an archer deals so much damage. My point is there are already ranged units that do this. 50+ elite chakrams, elite Mangudai, elite ballistas etc. Very high dps than what’s typically expected. We don’t see or treat any of those units like their generic counterparts. We make scorps against CA but not mangudai…And no one questions “how is it fair for a CA to do 4 or 5 damage to siege and that too with that high firing rate”.

That’s just your assumption. Almost every infantry unit other than Huskarls, Ghulam and Eagles do get countered by fully upgraded archer line. A rule is about majority. Condottieri don’t get countered by gunpowder units but you can’t say that “gunpowder counters infantry” is not a rule because of that.

Lol. Samurai won’t deal with archer units while fighting at one spot. It can kill castle age crossbows or some small stray groups of arbs but that’s about it. You’d have to split the army, push from several spots, limit the movement to make them work. That’s fine but it doesn’t mean Samurai deal with archers well.
Infantry countering cavalry is also by the volume and gold cost effectiveness for that stage of the game. Its not like infantry counter cavalry at min 30 in Arabia because its never made at that stage. In the settings where they do get used like closed maps, limited mobility maps, late imp infantry can be spammed more to counter cavalry due to the low gold cost.
And eagles, huskarls and ghulam violate that as well because they’re not typical infantry.

Not comparing or equating melee and p.armor at all. Comparing the productivity. High dps unit that’s difficult to deal with but also difficult to produce isn’t problematic.

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Your comparison is reasonably good, but there are some important things left out:

15, because Malians miss blast furnace and the base attack of elite is 13.

Gbetos also have an unusually high frame/attack delay which constrains their micro potential despite their high speed. It’s conceivable that Compbows could have such a high attack delay as well, although I’m guessing that it’s lower. And if so, that’s one more advantage on their side.

I also don’t see anything about cost, which is a bit odd. Compbows are cheaper in total res (80 vs 90), but most importantly have a wood cost instead of the Gbeto’s 50 food cost, which will make Compbows significantly easier to mass. Looking at this another way, if you switch unit costs, Gbetos easily become OP.

Compbows also have 1 (2) melee armor versus the 0 for Gbetos, which will make them more melee resistant in some matchups despite slightly lower HP.

I agree that some of the nerf suggestions and the thread title are hyperbolic, but the point is that giving an ability like this to a ranged unit needs to be extremely finely tuned and lends itself to balance problems and annoying gameplay more than several other mechanics they could have chosen. Even most people defending the unit concept acknowledge that it should/will be nerfed from its current stats.

Speaking of which, forgot to include them in my list of high pierce armor units. They and the incoming Savar have 8 when FU.

Not unthinkable in terms of a rare lucky shot that hits a weak point or gap at just the right angle, or bodkin points that could be used to penetrate weaker armors like chain mail. This would be better reflected by a charge attack, or an attack that ignored some, but not all pierce armor. Entirely ignoring all non-siege armor on every shot is a bad baseline both in terms of gameplay and realism.

This is my biggest problem with the unit. Some amount of mold-breaking is good, but this goes too far. It would be similar to a new a civ with a knight-like stat monster UU a little stronger than the Centurion, but instead of the aura, it’s gimmick was that it couldn’t be converted. Some people on the forum would probably consider that “an interesting subversion of traditional counter dynamics!” But to me, it just looks like a dumb idea that completely nullifies one of the key counters to heavy cav.

Regardless, I’m not going to overinvest in this argument as there’s nothing to be gained here. The unit and its gimmick are surely here to stay, I just think it will be hard to balance and will be far more annoying than interesting. Alas.

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I will use your logic. UU anti-anti-archer should do well against ALL anti-archer units.

You do know such example exists and is balanced right? It’s just your personal taste.

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how about we just wait until we can actually play with them and see how it plays out. this is such a pointless thread

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The cobra car would destroy the game balance as an UU, but there is always a guy saying “wait until it releases to see if its truth”

There is no need to test basic stuff on a 26 years old game, forum warriors don’t take into consideration micro management same like the devs, this unit will break everything just like the obuch did cause of cheap price, amor/hp and one special ability, they are doing the same over and over, making the game less competitive by breaking the unit balance and counter system.

There are too many things wrong with this dlc that the ignoring armor archer is calling all the attention, just like the houfnice did so they will nerf one unit but will keep obuch like units for years, i don’t see any logical argument to defend the dev’s work inthe last years.

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