How would you balance the Coustillier?

[Sage of Gwylim]

Be specific, and explain your reasons why.

If you want an extra challenge, do it without touching the charge bonus.

My first pass:
Cost: 55F 55G --> 70F 70G
HP: 115 (145 Elite) --> 100 (130 Elite)
Armor: 2 Melee 2 Pierce --> 1 Melee 1 Pierce
RoF: 1.9 --> 2.1

I tried to model it off the Tarkan a bit, since they're both supposed to be medium cavalry. I lowered the armor on it too, because 2/2 is a what a Knight/Cavalier has and this is supposed to be a medium cav, so I gave it 1/1 since Tarkans have 1 melee armor. Rate of Fire was raised to the Tarkan's too, to further weaken their sustained combat. They're now equivalent resource cost to Mamelukes, but instead of gold heavy they balance the two so their food cost is prohibitive in early Castle.

[Cacomistle]

Praetorian_INTP님이 먼저 게시:

sorry, I stopped reading your drivel, Caco; at some point each and every one of us had to learn for all matters concerning the internet, to not engage in bad faith arguments, to not waste time on someone who truely didn't care to have an honest discussion. Otherwise one is bound to fall victim to trolls time and time again.

Yes I agree. I'm not interested in discussing why my argument wasn't bad faith. And you're not interested in discussing my critiques of your proposed suggestion. So lets drop it, sounds good.

[Praetorian_INTP]

Setting up bad faith arguments, and then not being willing, to discuss, why they "weren't" bad faith arguments. Makes sense. Didn't expect anything but this.
Atleast you kept your sophistry short this time.

Again: I would be very willing to discuss actual critiques. But for that you actually have to address what has actually been said, rather than rambling about what hasn't been said, and what that means, despite the fact, that there is no rrom for said "that means", since I made it pretty clear, that there are OP aspects to this units. [which, consequently, could be exploited by "pros". Not mentioning pros on my part, does squat to undermine my argument. Nothing in what I said contradicted this possibility, hence, your contradiction only highlights your own shortcomings in understanding nuance... even nuance that is pretty demn self evident. - but hey! - why bother with logic!]

[Cacomistle]

Praetorian_INTP님이 먼저 게시:

sorry, I stopped reading your drivel, Caco; at some point each and every one of us had to learn for all matters concerning the internet, to not engage in bad faith arguments, to not waste time on someone who truely didn't care to have an honest discussion. Otherwise one is bound to fall victim to trolls time and time again.

From the very start you grossly misrepresented what I was saying, put words into my mouth, utilized ad hominem fallacies and whatnot.
My actual [original] argument said nothing about pros not being able to do this or that; in fact, my statements about some "OP" aspect of this feature left plenty of room to that. yet, you tried to create something out of thin air there. An argument as dishonest as they come.
If you are just a cold bloded sophist, or a hothead who overestimates his intellectual prowess -- I don't care at this point. The few times I gave you another try, again and again you set up faulty arguments, again and again you lied, shifted the goalpost and whatnot. Not worth my time. period! - wether you do that out of ignorance, or calculated, doesn't make a difference at this point. The "innocence" in stupid only goes this far, before it becomes deliberate obtuseness, that deserves no respect.

I GET THAT YOU DIDN'T SAY ITS WEAK AT A PRO LEVEL. I said I misinterpreted your post the first post I made. Stop being triggered that someone could possibly interpret your post wrong. You can just say "I meant this", and we can move on.

[Cacomistle]

Praetorian_INTP님이 먼저 게시:

Setting up bad faith arguments, and then not being willing, to discuss, why they "weren't" bad faith arguments. Makes sense. Didn't expect anything but this.
Atleast you kept your sophistry short this time.

Again: I would be very willing to discuss actual critiques. But for that you actually have to address what has actually been said, rather than rambling about what hasn't been said, and what that means, despite the fact, that there is no rrom for said "that means", since I made it pretty clear, that there are OP aspects to this units.

I did. I said "I misinterpreted your post and agree with your analysis". All you had to do was say "I don't think its weak at a pro level". You said that. So I said I now agree with your analysis. What do you want me to?

The reason I don't want to discuss that argument is because I dropped it. Why would I justify an argument I dropped?

[Doomed World]

At the very least half the damage charge deals to villagers

[Praetorian_INTP]

Cacomistle님이 먼저 게시:

Praetorian_INTP님이 먼저 게시:

[..]

I GET THAT YOU DIDN'T SAY ITS WEAK AT A PRO LEVEL. I said I misinterpreted your post the first post I made. Stop being triggered that someone could possibly interpret your post wrong.

Gotta admit, I zoomed out at parts of your response, when I saw yet another faulty setup.
Mea culpa (honestly) if that lead to me overlooking your attempt to setting it right.
Maybe I expect the worst out of people too regularly, not having the endurance to stick to any attempt for second tries.
Again: if I overlooked an honest attempt to set things straight, I want to apologize.

[-SNiGS- JAM]

Praetorian_INTP님이 먼저 게시:

-SNiGS- Slayer님이 먼저 게시:

Blacksmith upgrades are how every unit obtains more damage. Onagers are prized, for their burst damage. Giving a cavalry unit a damage boost, based solely off of the fact that they're moving, is too shallow and undermines the blacksmith code that every unit abides by.

Nothing in your post supported the conjecture, that "Blacksmith upgrades are the way to go" for any and all advantages. Your argument just falls apart from there.
I do support the idea, that their charge bonus should be re-examined both in strength and applicability, but your approach just reeks of ignorance. "i don't like the idea, therefore, something else has to be established as the supreme court for bonus damages and effectiveness!"

"...how every unit obtains more damage..." you are factually wrong on that. Your sophistry does nothing toalleviate that.

Uhm...

Bro what?

Have you ever played Age of Empires 2??

Hahahah like what??

Have.. you ever even built a blacksmith before?

Are you smelling toast dude? XD like what??????

[-SNiGS- JAM]

Balcksmith upgrades are literally how every single military unit in the game gets more damage and armor..

Its literally the backbone of the damagevsarmor balance between literally all units in the entire game.

wtf are you smoking.

[Antares]

-SNiGS- Slayer님이 먼저 게시:

Balcksmith upgrades are literally how every single military unit in the game gets more damage and armor..

Its literally the backbone of the damagevsarmor balance between literally all units in the entire game.

wtf are you smoking.

Nope. Female villagers can sew gambesons in houses. So you're wrong.

Damage can get obtained with a lot of practice and training.

[low_apm]

Imho the best idea would be to make the charge attacks apply only to cavalry and cavalry archers (and maybe siege?). The fact that you one hit kill pikemen is hilarious, but also seems quite broken. Not to mention that a raid with coustilliers on enemy villagers is insane, because you one hit kill villagers too

[-SNiGS- JAM]

Sabata님이 먼저 게시:

-SNiGS- Slayer님이 먼저 게시:

Balcksmith upgrades are literally how every single military unit in the game gets more damage and armor..

Its literally the backbone of the damagevsarmor balance between literally all units in the entire game.

wtf are you smoking.

Nope. Female villagers can sew gambesons in houses. So you're wrong.

Damage can get obtained with a lot of practice and training.

XD XD XD

[Cacomistle]

-SNiGS- Slayer님이 먼저 게시:

Balcksmith upgrades are literally how every single military unit in the game gets more damage and armor..

Its literally the backbone of the damagevsarmor balance between literally all units in the entire game.

wtf are you smoking.

Well except siege. And gunpowder units. And I don't think arambai benefit from them other. Nor do ballista elephants (although those are kind of siege).

Then for units arguably less affected by blacksmith upgrades, there's halbs have a +32 bonus vs cav so their attack upgrades don't affect them much in their role. And elite war elephants have 20 attack so blacksmith upgrades aren't very impactful on them. Both these units (and a few others) are arguably less affected by blacksmith upgrades than the coustillier.

I don't think the coustillier is out of line here just because blacksmith attack upgrades affect them less than most units. They're not even the unit blacksmith upgrades impact the least (out of the ones blacksmith upgrades affect).

I mean lets juts compare it vs knight. Lets say the knight player says "♥♥♥♥ armor, it doesn't affect fights against coustillier". Well now coustillier do 8 damage to the knights, and knights deal 8 damage back. So the coustillier just destroys them and is objectively superior.

Whereas the other way around, if the knight player has 2 armor and the coustillier player ignores attack, the coustillier's deal 4 damage. Now suddenly we're in a place where the knights will win any and all extended engagements because the coustillier just deal trash damage after the charge. Which means if you can force a fight, the coustillier player just flat out loses.

So they're not even unimpacted by blacksmith upgrades. Whereas several units are. If we follow this supposed blacksmith code, we remove conqs, hand cannons, janissaries, arambai, and all siege from the game. And coustillier stay in.

To be clear I do think there's arguments against the charge mechanic, I don't like it much myself. But there's no precedent that units must be heavily impacted by blacksmith upgrades. That just doesn't exist.

[-SNiGS- JAM]

Cacomistle님이 먼저 게시:

-SNiGS- Slayer님이 먼저 게시:

Balcksmith upgrades are literally how every single military unit in the game gets more damage and armor..

Its literally the backbone of the damagevsarmor balance between literally all units in the entire game.

wtf are you smoking.

Well except siege. And gunpowder units. And I don't think arambai benefit from them other. Nor do ballista elephants (although those are kind of siege).

Then for units arguably less affected by blacksmith upgrades, there's halbs have a +32 bonus vs cav so their attack upgrades don't affect them much in their role. And elite war elephants have 20 attack so blacksmith upgrades aren't very impactful on them. Both these units (and a few others) are arguably less affected by blacksmith upgrades than the coustillier.

I don't think the coustillier is out of line here just because blacksmith attack upgrades affect them less than most units. They're not even the unit blacksmith upgrades impact the least (out of the ones blacksmith upgrades affect).

I mean lets juts compare it vs knight. Lets say the knight player says "♥♥♥♥ armor, it doesn't affect coustillier". Well now coustillier do 8 damage to the knights, and knights deal 8 damage back. So the coustillier just destroys them and is objectively superior.

Whereas the other way around, if the knight player has 2 armor and the coustillier player ignores attack, the coustillier's deal 4 damage. Now suddenly we're in a place where the knights will win any and all extended engagements because the coustillier just deal 0 damage after the charge. Which means if you can force a fight, the coustillier player just flat out loses.

They're not even unimpacted by blacksmith upgrades.

The fact that counters exist doesnt negate the fact that with an attack damage boost will give a unit the ability to counter any unit. Like an onager.

Onagers are already previously noted as prized possessions for their burst damage DESPITE the blacksmith upgrades, despite the existence of the blacksmith in of itself. In spite of. Implying that your choices in the blacksmith tech tree are part of the core of your ability to exist on the map, as many players know, spearmen in Imperial Age are a good knee slapper. And in game, you PAY for the exception, the onager. Its EXPENSIVE & SLOW. You have to protect them and dedicate an entire other part of your army to getting them to location so they dont get hard countered and tank your economy.
Noting all the exceptions doesnt undermine the system already in place, or the fact that the Coustillier, a cavalry unit, one of the unit types that DOES abide by the blacksmith tech, doesnt have to, because of the ability.

Ignoring the counter system as well as the attack tech in the blacksmith. All in one unit.

The Sicilians have a stronk infantry choice, but again, is SLOW. Like a Teutonic knight. Like an Onager.
Slav Boyars specifically have one focus vs melee encounters, and still abide by the blacksmith.
Tarkans get attack bonuses, but its all funneled into the unit type they already counter (buildings), as opposed to.. every unit.
Every Cavalry UU still abides by the counter system and the blacksmith. With the only exception being the Leitis and its departure from your opponent's armor upgrades (which to be perfectly frank, having the ability to outright ignore armor entirely, rather than a percentage of it between 33-50%, IS overtuned imo. I want to be entirely consistent with my point of view with these new abilities being put into the game. Abilities that directly make it easier for a unit to win engagements across the spectrum of encounters, rather than a singular specialization).

A speed boost would have so much more depth in its micro potential across all player levels.

[Cacomistle]

-SNiGS- Slayer님이 먼저 게시:

Cacomistle님이 먼저 게시:

Well except siege. And gunpowder units. And I don't think arambai benefit from them other. Nor do ballista elephants (although those are kind of siege).

Then for units arguably less affected by blacksmith upgrades, there's halbs have a +32 bonus vs cav so their attack upgrades don't affect them much in their role. And elite war elephants have 20 attack so blacksmith upgrades aren't very impactful on them. Both these units (and a few others) are arguably less affected by blacksmith upgrades than the coustillier.

I don't think the coustillier is out of line here just because blacksmith attack upgrades affect them less than most units. They're not even the unit blacksmith upgrades impact the least (out of the ones blacksmith upgrades affect).

I mean lets juts compare it vs knight. Lets say the knight player says "♥♥♥♥ armor, it doesn't affect coustillier". Well now coustillier do 8 damage to the knights, and knights deal 8 damage back. So the coustillier just destroys them and is objectively superior.

Whereas the other way around, if the knight player has 2 armor and the coustillier player ignores attack, the coustillier's deal 4 damage. Now suddenly we're in a place where the knights will win any and all extended engagements because the coustillier just deal 0 damage after the charge. Which means if you can force a fight, the coustillier player just flat out loses.

They're not even unimpacted by blacksmith upgrades.

Noting all the exceptions doesnt undermine the system already in place, or the fact that the Coustillier, a cavalry unit, one of the unit types that DOES abide by the blacksmith tech, doesnt have to, because of the ability.

Ignoring the counter system as well as the attack tech in the blacksmith. All in one unit.

I mostly agree with most of your post. But this is the part that doesn't make sense.

Lets just say you're fighting a boyar cause you mentioned that as a unit whose strength is supposed to be high armor. Lets skip attack upgrades and say we're in imp age.

So the unupgraded elite coustillier does 41 damage with its first attack. then 2 damage with every subsequent attack. Its trash. It can't fight boyar because it's literally only capable of damage once every 40 seconds. If we give it full upgrades, it does 6 damage which isn't great, but it could finish off some boyar after bursting the first few down.

Imagine you fought a boyar with with 2 coustilliers. With no upgrades, it takes 84 burst. Then the coustillier's deal 4 damage (combined) per attack, and it takes 16.5 attacks from both coustillier's before it dies. If they're FU, that drops down to 6 hits combined (as they'd take 92 initially, 12 each subsequent attack from both combined). That's massive.

Fact is, you're not going to micro the unit such that every attack is a charge. Its just not possible. If those non charge attacks are total trash, the unit isn't going to be great.

On the other hand if we look at say, a teutonic knight, it does 17 damage base. There's not really interesting breakpoints you can hit (like an elite war elephant 2 shots an abalest, but if the arbalest has better armor than the elephants attack it 3 shots). Even against a FU boyar an unupgraded teutonic knight would deal 8 damage, FU is 12 damage which is 50% damage increase compared to the coustillier dealing triple damage with non charged attacks. Against say an arbalest, it 3 shots no matter what. Against a halberdier, it goes from 4 hits to 5 if you get 0 attack upgrades against a FU halb. The effect is minimal.

So don't say its about how its affected by blacksmith upgrades. There's more to the unit than the charge. If you don't upgrade it, you get a unit that can only attack once every 40 seconds. That's trash. You need blacksmith upgrades.

Blacksmith upgrades are what for example the difference between a 10v8 fight of coustillier vs knights being a stomp, and them insta killing 1-2 knights and putting a few more at low hp, then being forced to back off cause they get their ass kicked.

What you are describing seems to instead be the issue of giving massive burst damage to a mobile unit. Which I agree with. But that has nothing to do with the blacksmith. And that's for example what lets it trade well into halberdier (its not as if halbs have high armor after all).

Like imagine this, lets say instead of +35 damage, it hit 5 extra times (just ignore that that's +40 not +35 before upgrades). What would that fix? They'd be the same thing, except maybe knights would do slightly better vs them and boyar would work well. But they'd still counter halbs, they'd still basically 1 shot monks mangonels and villagers, they'd still be able to hit and run knights, nothing is different except they be slightly more in need of blacksmith attack upgrades to 1 shot everything (and opponents in need of defense).

[Sscral]

Cacomistle님이 먼저 게시:

Imagine you fought a boyar with with 2 coustilliers. With no upgrades, it takes 84 burst. Then the coustillier's deal 4 damage (combined) per attack, and it takes 16.5 attacks from both coustillier's before it dies. If they're FU, that drops down to 6 hits combined (as they'd take 92 initially, 12 each subsequent attack from both combined). That's massive.

Fact is, you're not going to micro the unit such that every attack is a charge. Its just not possible. If those non charge attacks are total trash, the unit isn't going to be great.

I disagree on this point, you have 0 incentive to not micro the unit so that every attack is a charge, there is no punishment for you to run away for 40 seconds to let it recharge and come back in to finish the boyar off while taking minimal damage in return, the movement speed you have is enough to match almost all of the other units in the game and exceed most of them - plus this being your cavalry unit you wouldn't necessarily even fight the boyar at all depending on if you're fighting on their side of the map or yours, if you're on their side of the map you would just ignore their boyars and kill their villagers instead, you spend so little time attacking villagers that they cannot catch up to you to do damage
If you're on your side of the map you probably wouldn't engage the boyars, you would charge attack them, run entire coustillier group away after most charge attacks are spent and have a few spearmen line infantry behind to prevent them from advancing to kill your villagers(Boyars don't get instant kills on villagers so they will stand in place attacking long enough to die to spearmen) - then return in 40 seconds and do it again

This ceases to be a major advantage with huge scale armies that you cannot micro, but people are not fighting with huge scale armies at the point most 1v1 matches are decided and over with, you might have 30 units on each side of this fight in castle age as a high estimate, since you lose less units from being able to use burst damage your numerical advantage will grow, they are replacing units, you are adding new units, once you have double the amount out in use that they do you can just instantly annihilate their army once every 40 seconds without taking much actual damage in return

I particularly favor the solutions that force the coustilliers to actually fight and prevent this micro from taking place, reduction in movement speed while charge attack is recharging at the very least, they can still get their burst damage but you would have to have some hope of winning with their substandard base damage afterwards(So you cannot use them to take out a significantly superior force to yourself) instead of just charge attacking anything you want that isn't a petard with no trade off or punishment whatsoever as long as you run away right afterwards, not many other units can attack without being at risk of retaliation, the ones that can potentially do this are normally slow and cannot escape if they don't kill the enemy(onager), vulnerable to ranged attacks or siege weapons(cavalry archer), or both slow and vulnerable to siege weapons(scorpion) - coustilliers are not vulnerable to siege weapons, get double damage against archers(instant kill on any archer or cavalry archer unit) and do not take particularly large amounts of shots from them before ballistics - it isn't that they are too good, it is that they are good against just about anything you use them on besides attacking buildings, they're even effective against spearmen if you don't let them sit around and get attacked after they kill half the spearmen on the first charge and just wait until you get another one ready and come back