nice topic , nicov my man
About Arambai from some discussions Ive read on different forums I found out there was one point which people usually dont realize. If you are using a group of arambais against lets say group of archers/xbows then they do significantly more damage than lets say conquistadors because even though they have less accuracy they do some kind of split/trample damage to the other units. It means that even if some arambais dont hit the unit you targeted then those missed projectiles do half (9) damage to the surrounded units a bit like mangonel shot or elite cataphract vs infantry. This seems to be very strong and unforeseen consequence.
Oh boy here we go again....
I've played a lot of Arabia on the 5.5 balance patch (probably around 300), and small amounts of other map types. I've also watched all relevant tournament matches on this balance patch. However, I'm no 2k2+ so....meh....
Camel Archers: They are not quite as good as AoC Mangudai, but they are pretty close. At the very least they should lose their bonus against rams
Arambai: Pretty straight analogue to the Conquistador. Arambai are much less armored and much less accurate, but they cost wood instead of food and are generally cheaper besides. Also, they fire much faster, making them much better in Imp. Worse than Conqs in Castle Age and much better in Imp. If they are going to make them cost wood, they should cost more wood than the do currently.
Eagles: Eagles have been good since forever, it's just that now they have a real Castle Age version. I think they need to make them take longer to train in Castle Age just like they do in Feudal. That's it.
Battle Elephants: Fine in 1v1, too good in team games. I'd make the elite upgrade more expensive. We'd have to test the specific numbers.
Karambits: They are a fine unit if they cost 1 pop. Way too good for costing half a pop. Either make them weaker or make them cost 1 pop.
I think there are many more changes that are needed, but those are the most pressing imo.
+1Making karambits cost 1 pop ruins them completely.
Just make them build slower or give them a bit less attack.
Not nearly enough for me, I think more than anything they need less attack, to reduce their overall dps. Something like -2 attack could be an idea.+1Making karambits cost 1 pop ruins them completely.
Just make them build slower or give them a bit less attack.
3-4 sec higher creation time should be enough
no, just increase the production time a tiny bit, making them 1 pop ruins the gimmick, taking away damage will make them not threatening in the slightest and besides its not like malay have much else to use, so just let them have a strong karambit but make it slightly longer to produce.Not nearly enough for me, I think more than anything they need less attack, to reduce their overall dps. Something like -2 attack could be an idea.+1Making karambits cost 1 pop ruins them completely.
Just make them build slower or give them a bit less attack.
3-4 sec higher creation time should be enough
They should definitely have lower attack. Right now they even stronger than champions cost wise, even vs high melee armor units. 2 karambits (which is cheaper than 1 champion) do 14 damage vs 1 paladin ((12-5)*2) vs 12 of 1 champion (18-5). I think this really shouldn't be the case, in my opinion they should be slightly weaker than champions vs low melee armor units and much weaker vs high melee armor units. The only way to do this is nerfing their attack.no, just increase the production time a tiny bit, making them 1 pop ruins the gimmick, taking away damage will make them not threatening in the slightest and besides its not like malay have much else to use, so just let them have a strong karambit but make it slightly longer to produce.
They should definitely have lower attack. Right now they even stronger than champions cost wise, even vs high melee armor units. 2 karambits (which is cheaper than 1 champion) do 14 damage vs 1 paladin ((12-5)*2) vs 12 of 1 champion (18-5). I think this really shouldn't be the case, in my opinion they should be slightly weaker than champions vs low melee armor units and much weaker vs high melee armor units. The only way to do this is nerfing their attack.
that's a fair point, though I think it shouldn't be close between karambit and champ vs paladin. I think I've even undersold the karambits power. versus units one big aspect that's not easily seen from unit stats is that they very easily surround and overwhelm units, which makes them have very efficient fights all the time. They occupy much more space around enemy units, which directly makes karambits fight more efficiently.They should definitely have lower attack. Right now they even stronger than champions cost wise, even vs high melee armor units. 2 karambits (which is cheaper than 1 champion) do 14 damage vs 1 paladin ((12-5)*2) vs 12 of 1 champion (18-5). I think this really shouldn't be the case, in my opinion they should be slightly weaker than champions vs low melee armor units and much weaker vs high melee armor units. The only way to do this is nerfing their attack.
this is not completly correct, since you forget the effect, that at a certain point 1 of the 2 karambits dies. If you let 2 Karambits fight vs 1 pala, the pala will end up with like 117 HP, while the pala has 120 HP if he fights a champ 1v1. Not a big deal.
I don't think that the attack should be reduced. With 5 attack, they deal exactly 1 damage to a 2+2 knight - that's ridiculous for an infantry unit. It also would not help much with the issue of them swarming everything. A build time increase by 3-4 seconds from 6 to 9-10 should help a great deal with the castle age problems. Not sure about imp, but it would still help there.I don't understand why they improved Karambit Warriors in patch 5.5. Sure, 5 attack was garbage, but the unit is so cheap and with 6 attack it's just OP. Granted, the unit seems to he most useful in imperial age so any nerf would probably be withe elite counterpart (or just creation time/cost in general).
Completely agree about this. Having camel armor instead of cavalry armor makes them much, much more resilient to pikes and camels (not even to mention that being a high-damage, fast, ranged unit already suffices for this). There's absolutely no reason to decrease that low bonus damage even further. And regarding the skirms: It was sort of acceptable when they were introduced and had 1+2/1+2 armor max. But after receiving ring archer armor, which was mainly aimed at Genitours in the first place anyway, the new 1+3/1+4 max is too strong. And the bonus against the extra damage of elite skirmishers must be removed without a doubt. If RAA is to be kept, removing the pierce armor seems like a good choice, to make archers a more useful counter.Camel Archers are just ridiculous. They have basically no weaknesses. They beat Crossbowmen, en masse they wreck Knights and Camels, they outmicro siege, they beat Eagle Warriors (and ofc other infantry), they beat Plumed Archers, they have an attack bonus against Cavalry Archers (nullifying Huns and somewhat Magyars) and Mangudai (somewhat nullifying Mongols) and even units that usually counter archers, War Wagons and Elephant Archers. In castle age the Camel Archers even deal 2 damage to Battering Rams, and their ram attack bonus carries over to unpacked Trebuchets in imperial (Capped Rams and Siege Rams have bonus armor though, so they fortunately don't take any bonus damage). They're in the camel armor class instead of the cavalry armor class, so they take less damage from Pikemen and Camels and take NONE from Mamelukes, on top of this they have 1 camel armor anyway so take even less damage, and have 1 cavalry archer armor too so take less from Elite Skirmishers.On top of this they are created fast especially with Kasbah, and in imp they have all of the same problems except that they have 2 camel armor and 2 cav archer armor instead of 1 so take EVEN LESS bonus damage and also regenerate HP,. They might be efficiently countered by Siege Onagers in imperial but that's really it.
I would fix this by removing their 1 pierce armor, removing their bonus armors vs anti-camel and anti-CA, and making them train a bit slower (they still have Kasbah to benefit from).
I disagree, heavy camels have always been a workable (though not great) counter to Mames.Also plz give Mamelukes at least a small attack bonus vs the camel armor clsss, they currently deal bonus damage to cavalry (horse-type units) but not camels, so Imperial Camels and Elite Camel Archers wreck Elite Mamelukes. Poor Saracens