Camel Riders are too weak.

[Myself]

Just talking about the normal Camel Rider here. They are available past Castle along with the Knight as an expensive, but mobile counter, somewhat capable of raiding. However, they are very vulnerable to towers, archer-line, and spear-line, despite being quite expensive per unit.

That makes sense as their main purpose is to respond quickly to knights and light cav, but they have 15 attack against knights (13 when taking knight base armor into account), slightly slower attack rate than knights, and they take 10 dmg per hit from knights (all of this assuming the BM upgrades are the same). Their dmg vs. knights should be increased, or the camel line should get at least 1 base melee armor.

[Barath]

Havent both (Camels and militia line) recieved some HUGE buffs in the past? Knights are cool (as they should be in a medieval setting), but I never felt like they were hard to counter... Camels are (like spears and skirms) a unit that isnt supposed to be the backbone of an army, but rather a specialist u only build to protect your other units against enemy cav. Im far from being a rly good player but to me the balance with the old units seems to be in a good spot. Balance issues are rather present with the new units/Civs. Steppe-lancer kinda went from OP to useless with the last patch... All imho ofc.

[Cacomistle]

ThunderclesTheBrass eredeti hozzászólása:

i support absolutely anything that reduces the overwhelming dominance of knights in this game. its actually amazing that a 20 year old game still has such imbalance issues. I would also like to see the militia line get buffed to make them useful.

I really don't think knights are dominant in this game. At least not at a high level of play.

Pathing makes melee units in general worse in this game, and monks sometimes just get straight up instant conversions. Because of the pathing, knights (and eagle warriors) have a hard time taking on archers or cav archers in large number engagements. So that makes them pretty much entirely about the mobility.

I think the dominant unit right now is cav archers tbh. Because they kite knights easily, and they're mobile. And they don't cost food which usually makes it easier to get to imp. And ofc regular arbalests are quite strong, I think largely because a lot of the civs that would build them are powerful.

Like right now I think the most dominant civs are the meso civs, Britons especially on gold rush, Malay on Arena, Mongols on any map with a lot of hunts, Huns are really good on Arabia, Chinese were the civ in Regicide fortress in NAC3, and then we've got Persia is good (and vikings are played a lot but idk if they're best on any map).

So what we've got there is archer civs, cav archer civs, civs with just really good eco bonuses. And 2 civs that might build a lot of knights (huns and Persia), one of which is more likely to mass cav archers and the other of which gets 0 gold xbow so they have an amazing trash unit to counter halberdiers.

Knights are only particularly dominant as an early castle unit. Because they're the only unit that you get at full power without an unlock (well also stuff like camels that only specific civs get but most of them are more niche units). So they're very good if you hit castle before a fuedal opponent. They could force you to pay to unlock knights, like how you have to pay for xbow. But then going castle age on open maps is way harder, meso civs get even better because they'd still have a powerful early castle option, and archers are op because they'll be in mass before knights can do anything.

Where are you getting that knights are dominant in this game? Maybe on voobly, but here Its archers, not knights. Its just militia line sucks till maybe imp with supplies/champ so you've got 2 common options.

On the note of camels, they are quite fast. Which makes them really good at stopping raids. I don't think they have to be a powerhouse or super cost effective counter unit like halberdiers are. Because the point is that if your opponent goes knights, and you go camels, there's not much they can do except transition off. Whereas most other counters you have some sort of outplay (knights are more mobile than halberds, its very easy to add in a couple mangonels in vs skirms and they offensively, cost food, and require armor upgrade to hard counter so you can imp earlier, light cav is supposed to counter monks and they just end up getting converted half the time anyways, archers beat knights in large numbers or with chokepoints, etc). Like camels vs knights is one of the only locations where you.

I think its fine that camels are there just for a mobile option vs knights because forcing your opponent to transition to a less mobile army is extremely powerful, even if they get absolutely destroyed by spears and archers. Only India is meant to actually use regular camels as a powerhouse unit rather than just to shut down enemy mobility. At least camels get used, which can't be said for all the units in castle age (especially like longswordsmen).

[Myself]

CAs and Steppe Lancers are just another reason to give the camels a small buff. They only buff camels have received at all is getting taken out of the ship armor class (less damage from defensive structures), but they got nerfed after, taking a lot more damage from anti-cav units now. They are still very vulnerable to ranged attacks and get shredded by CAs, and the base camel's attack bonus against cavalry is only 9, so they deal 15 dmg to cav archers. It may seem like good damage but IMO the other melee cavalry are capable enough of dealing with cav archers while also being more beefy and versatile.

[Cacomistle]

Myself eredeti hozzászólása:

CAs and Steppe Lancers are just another reason to give the camels a small buff. They only buff camels have received at all is getting taken out of the ship armor class (less damage from defensive structures), but they got nerfed after, taking a lot more damage from anti-cav units now. They are still very vulnerable to ranged attacks and get shredded by CAs, and the base camel's attack bonus against cavalry is only 9, so they deal 15 dmg to cav archers. It may seem like good damage but IMO the other melee cavalry are capable enough of dealing with cav archers while also being more beefy and versatile.

I think camels are still good vs cav archers. Unlike knights, they're faster than cav archers, and unlike light cav they deal good damage. Cav archers from I've seen is commonly about building up military and taking map control early (at least with huns, mongols are a bit different cause often they'll wait till mangudai to go for a lot of CA). And while camel riders cannot beat cav archers in large numbers, they win in small numbers which means they can beat cav archers in those small numbers in the first place.

And unless you're going against Viper or something, camel riders can shut down cav archer raids. Because most players cannot focus on kiting the cav archers at the same time as they deal with a frontal assault and balance their economy.

At the moment, I think they could receive a minor buff. Because they don't really counter anything. They don't beat knights very hard and knights are a lot more versatile, so they start winning when more units are added. And their matchup vs cav archers is kind of situational. Often times knights (or eagle warriors) is a better matchup vs CA because while they can't catch up and kill the cav archers, they can just wipe out economy. And camels are far worse at that option. Camels have to be able to take the fight, and that's not possible in large numbers.

Rather than them being buffed though, I think that the melee unit pathing needs to be fixed first. Camels would be a lot better cav archers if they didn't just get stuck on each other. Although occasionally that works out in camels favor, because cav archers will just get stuck. And large knight armies would become more common making them more useful as a counter unit. Also removing the instant conversions monks sometimes get.

[RoofKorea=BestKorea]

Cacomistle eredeti hozzászólása:

I really don't think knights are dominant in this game. At least not at a high level of play.

List of units that are destroyed by knights:

vils
swordsmen
archers
skirmishers
cav archer
light cav
buildings
mangonels
scorpians
rams
trebs
handcanons
bombards


List of units that destroy knights (and have the strategic and tactical mobility to catch them):

..........

List of units that destroy knights in a fight but cannot catch them (and are destroyed by literally every single other unit):

spears


and that is why knight hordes are in every single game and franks are the most winning civ in the game. maybe you are only playing 1v1s where strategic mobility is irrelevent, but team games are utterly dominated by knights running around the map raping everything they see and running away from spears that are impotent to hit them and impotent to counter attack the knight players base. that is why they are dominant.

[Wes]

ThunderclesTheBrass eredeti hozzászólása:

i support absolutely anything that reduces the overwhelming dominance of knights in this game. its actually amazing that a 20 year old game still has such imbalance issues. I would also like to see the militia line get buffed to make them useful.

I totally agree with what you have said. In terms of random map which is the most popular game option, there are too many units are redundant which are not preferable in a competitive game because of their low cost-effectiveness. Aside from camel rider, byzantine cataphract with super super high upgrade cost (elite + logistica), but low hp, armor and attack (without furnace), and vulnerable against archer line. Tarkans, totally useless units when you compared with knight-line, in terms of its attack, high cost, castle-training, not very remarkable anti-building bonus, low firing rate.

Also, almost all infantry special units (except for huskarl) are redundant since you have to create it via castle, high cost but slow on-foot speed. The game is almost totally dominated by archer line, knight line and trash units but ignored all those on-foot infantry soldiers.

[theworld]

ThunderclesTheBrass eredeti hozzászólása:

List of units that destroy knights (and have the strategic and tactical mobility to catch them):

..........

".........." is a poor way to spell Mameluke.

List of units that destroy knights in a fight but cannot catch them (and are destroyed by literally every single other unit):

spears

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqCFppzhvmA

[Szebo210]

Knights are okay and camels dont need buff

Its like youre saying that skirmishers need a buff because theyre so weak agains everything expect archers

[RoofKorea=BestKorea]

TheWorld eredeti hozzászólása:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuTPGMDAvQs

why are you talking about UUs as if they are generally applicable?

[Myself]

Skirmishers don't cost gold, Camels do. Also, The point isn't that Camels only being useful as a counter to cavalry is bad; it's that Camels, especially Camel Riders, aren't even very good at countering cavalry and CA.

[Barath]

Myself eredeti hozzászólása:

Skirmishers don't cost gold, Camels do. Also, The point isn't that Camels only being useful as a counter to cavalry is bad; it's that Camels, especially Camel Riders, aren't even very good at countering cavalry and CA.

You think so?
When fighting against someone at castle age I like to mix in a few camels to my Knights (about a 1/3 to 1/4 of the units). No need to build or research anything else, since the same upgrades benefit them and they are build in the stables as well AND they keep up with them. A fight vs an equal number of enemy cavalry is usually won this way and raiding or fighting vs archers isnt that much worse since most units are still knights...
I love camels and use them alot. It wouldnt feel like the game balance would be threatened id they were buffed a bit (they are not available to everyone and cant be used in trash wars) - so why not? I wouldnt object trying it. But they dont feel like they have no place in the game atm, imho.
Id rather look at other units to give them a place they excel (scorpions, siege-towers, Steppe-lancers, some UUs...)

[Cacomistle]

ThunderclesTheBrass eredeti hozzászólása:

Cacomistle eredeti hozzászólása:

I really don't think knights are dominant in this game. At least not at a high level of play.

List of units that are destroyed by knights:

vils
swordsmen
archers
skirmishers
cav archer
light cav
buildings
mangonels
scorpians
rams
trebs
handcanons
bombards


List of units that destroy knights (and have the strategic and tactical mobility to catch them):

..........

List of units that destroy knights in a fight but cannot catch them (and are destroyed by literally every single other unit):

spears


and that is why knight hordes are in every single game and franks are the most winning civ in the game. maybe you are only playing 1v1s where strategic mobility is irrelevent, but team games are utterly dominated by knights running around the map raping everything they see and running away from spears that are impotent to hit them and impotent to counter attack the knight players base. that is why they are dominant.

Knights don't destroy cav archers, they're slower. And they don't destroy cav archers in large numbers.

We could do the exact same biased analysis of cav archers. Or archers for that analysis. The only units that beat archers in large numbers are mangonels and skirms. Mangonels are slow (ans british archers kite them), and skirms are countered even harder by mangonels.

Also your analysis didn't include monks. Or camels. And you included vills as if every unit doesn't kill vills.

This is intentionally bias. Why did you post this? No one who doesn't agree with you won't notice you've done nothing but list out units.

I'm just going to assume you're referring to low level games where players can't micro monks or kite with archers because a single game watching a high level players and there's no way you'd say they counter CA.

I'm just saying, my dishonest list for CA looks exactly the same (replace pikes with skirm, replace convenient forgetting of monks with forgetting mangonels, maybe you could include xbow in counters but if knights counter CA I'm calling xbow neutral). And ofc eagles and mangudai are uncounterable by anything since we've got the free forget a counter, and free "call this a counter when its obviously not", and a "well its too slow" all added in.


Skip to the pointal and lets talk about high level play. That's the bar. Not incorrect notions of counters, leaving out monks, or listing out all their strengths without any weakness, or failing to discuss how these"counters" work out in game

Tldr: are they dominating competitive play? Or just your mental counter list?

[theworld]

ThunderclesTheBrass eredeti hozzászólása:

why are you talking about UUs as if they are generally applicable?

why are you talking about knights if they are generally applicable?

Meso civs do not have them, yet they are strong and commonly picked in meta.