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Recently I have been playing around with the Portuguese quite a lot, and I've found that Organ Guns can actually be a decent unit in the castle age, especially on arena. People misevaluate them a lot, thinking they will be similar to other unique gunpowder like Janissaries, however they actually fulfill different roles and aren't meant to be used in the same situations.
In patch 5.7, the secondary projectiles of organs were buffed, to dealing 2 damage rather than just 1 damage. However, since the projectiles usually miss the primary target and hit a different one and deal half damage, they still deal 1 damage.
The important thing to note is that when the secondary projectiles do hit the selected target, they deal 2 damage each, and this is actually really significant against large units, especially mangonels and rams. Organ Guns destroy Battering Rams, Capped Rams, and Siege Rams alike when en masse. When they face off against Mangonels or Onagers, their secondary projectiles will hit and take it out faster, which is important. They also hit Trebuchets directly with the secondary bullets, which is quite important.
TL;DR: My point is that Organ Guns are not useless units, they're basically jans that cost wood, are good vs archers and skirms, require Redemption to convert, and tank Mangonel shots. They may still need buffs (I'd make their secondary projectiles deal 4 damage each so that stray shots deal 2 damage to non-target units, so they're good vs massed units) but I think people should not dismiss them as useless units as much.
They have 6 pierce armor. THEY ONLY HAVE 4 PIERCE ARMOR IN CASTLE AGE, THIS MEANS THEY STILL ARE GARBAGE VS CROSSBOWMEN. I LITERALLY ONLY THOUGHT THEY WERE USEFUL BECAUSE THEY HAD 6 PIERCE ARMOR, BUT THEY ACTUALLY HAVE 4. IT'S GARBAGE, WHAT A ****ING TERRIBLE UNIT 11111111This means that, unlike Janissaries, they can actually tank arrowfire, making them a good counter to most ranged units; Janissaries are decent vs xbows and eskirms because of their range, but not vs plumes or rattans, whereas Organ Guns are good vs plumes and rattans. Building an early castle as Portuguese and going for Organ Guns when against Mayans plumes can be very successful.They don't take bonus damage from Elite Skirmishers; jans take 7 damage per hit from skirms whereas organs take 1 damage. Eskirms are a decent counter to jans, but not to organs.They require Redemption to convert. Very important on Arena. If the opponent's civ doesn't have Redemption they cannot go for Monks as a counter to Organ Guns at all. If they do get Redemption, then they still have to invest 475 gold into researching it.They cost wood. They may be more total res than Janissaries (80 wood 60 gold vs 60 food 55 gold), but costing wood is much better than costing food; the farming gather rate, after taking the amount of time it takes to get the wood for a farm, is about 16.5 food per minute, whereas wood is 26.5 per minute (after Bow Saw); gold is 23 per minute (after Gold Mining). This means an Organ Gun costs 5.63 villager minutes of work time whereas a Janissary is 6.03; about 7% more expensive than organs. This is not taking into account the Turks' 20% faster gold mining though; with this the Janissary ends up being 5.63 villager minutes, which is exactly the same as the Organ Gun. So while the Organ Gun seems more expensive, they're actually at about the same cost. These numbers probably aren't 100% correct though, it's just approximations.An Organ Gun/Elite Organ Gun can tank a direct Mangonel/Onager shot, whereas a Janissary/Elite Janissary cannot. That being said, in the castle age, since Janissaries have 8 range, they outrange Mangonels and almost never take direct mango shots, meaning that jans are better than organs at killing mangos in castle age, however in imperial it is different because the Onager range goes up to 8 and Elite Organ Gun range reaches 7+1 yet jans stay at 8, so Elite Organ Guns become better vs Onagers than Elite Janissaries.They require no Blacksmith upgrades at all. While Janissaries need to get armor upgrades to get their 0+2 melee armor, Organ Guns start off with 2 base melee armor. That's saved res, in both castle and imperial age, although not that much.
The important thing to note is that when the secondary projectiles do hit the selected target, they deal 2 damage each, and this is actually really significant against large units, especially mangonels and rams. Organ Guns destroy Battering Rams, Capped Rams, and Siege Rams alike when en masse. When they face off against Mangonels or Onagers, their secondary projectiles will hit and take it out faster, which is important. They also hit Trebuchets directly with the secondary bullets, which is quite important.
TL;DR: My point is that Organ Guns are not useless units, they're basically jans that cost wood, are good vs archers and skirms, require Redemption to convert, and tank Mangonel shots. They may still need buffs (I'd make their secondary projectiles deal 4 damage each so that stray shots deal 2 damage to non-target units, so they're good vs massed units) but I think people should not dismiss them as useless units as much.
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