Indians Discussion Thread

[amiggo1999]

I was thinking about just giving them the same cost as their normal counterpart. I don't think it would become problematic.

I like this Idea.

[duckzilla]

Mansabdars are quite underwhelming though, if you compare them to, let's say, a daimyo (cost wise).

This was my thoughts, i can't ever really use mansabdars, they're expensive and hard to train, easy to snipe down, and offer fairly limited effects. I know the aura is post upgrade so it scales sort-of-ok, but its still fairly underwhelming. The most notable ones are the elephant ones. 14 pop unit lol
Honestly no one ever uses ellie mansabdars, maybe if the aura wasnt changed the elephant ones could be +2 pop instead of 2x pop

Nah, that's not true. I love doing low level 3v3, booming to imperial while the noobs clash and then just build a siege troop consisting of 12 siege ellies + mansabdar + hero elephants (for speed aura). It's just awesome to crash into an opponents base and destroy pretty much everything before he can really react. The mansabdar is nice here, because the unit itself is quite tanky (mansabdar have more hp i think) and it further buffs hp of my siege ellies.

[howlingwolfpaw]

sepoy and Gurka mansabars are quite worth it.... If you have a big army of them. I think in some testing a long time ago a regular fully carded Janisary kills a Sepoy by 1 hit, but with a mansabar its the opposite. I like to put them on stand ground stance so that they do not get too far into the ranks of the enemy, if they have to advance in your Indian units to kill it becomes a bad trade for them. But for any other unit the population cost is immense for kind of a negligible benefit to just a few other high pop units. Too bad urumi mansabar can not be retrained once the card is sent.

[dansil92]

sepoy and Gurka mansabars are quite worth it.... If you have a big army of them. I think in some testing a long time ago a regular fully carded Janisary kills a Sepoy by 1 hit, but with a mansabar its the opposite. I like to put them on stand ground stance so that they do not get too far into the ranks of the enemy, if they have to advance in your Indian units to kill it becomes a bad trade for them. But for any other unit the population cost is immense for kind of a negligible benefit to just a few other high pop units. Too bad urumi mansabar can not be retrained once the card is sent.

I did the math once and worked out that at 11 of a unit + mansabdar was essentially breakeven with 13 of the unit without mansabdar. For infantry its already viable but for elephants i would genuinely love to see the mansabdars as +2 pop instead of the current 12 and 14 pop monstrosities that exist currently

[princeofcarthage]

Mansabdar = 2x unit though + aura

[dansil92]

Its only 2x hp, damage stays at base

[howlingwolfpaw]

the aura is pretty weak for how much pop it takes, I mean a imperial 4k hp mahout is not something to mess with, but after a few kited volleys, its gone. And how many follow up mahouts will one really have to get a good use of it?

I am curious about your test @dansil92 because the mansabar is twice the HP so the only deficinecy is the lesser attack, The benefits certainly would scale with more units, depending what civ I am playing against, and how units they are using, my late game indian armies will have 30-50 sepoy as the back bone, with other support units as needed

[dansil92]

Heres the approximate math for 1 pop units:
11 units + 1 mansabdar
=
11 units x 1.1 (aura) = 12.1 units
+
1 mansabdar > 2x HP, 1x on attack

So your stacked attack is 13.2 units, stacked hp is 14.1

At 10 units plus mansabdar you fall very slightly short

While the math holds basically equivalent for elephants, it means you need 78 pop of howdah to breakeven

If you have 50 sepoy with a single mansabdar you have 52 pop acting approximately like 56-57 sepoy

[howlingwolfpaw]

Heres the approximate math for 1 pop units:
11 units + 1 mansabdar
=
11 units x 1.1 (aura) = 12.1 units
+
1 mansabdar > 2x HP, 1x on attack

So your stacked attack is 13.2 units, stacked hp is 14.1

At 10 units plus mansabdar you fall very slightly short

While the math holds basically equivalent for elephants, it means you need 78 pop of howdah to breakeven

If you have 50 sepoy with a single mansabdar you have 52 pop acting approximately like 56-57 sepoy

It may seem even, but in actuality a mansabar makes the army seem much more powerful, the die off etc... and people will sacrifice a lot of units to try to kill one. In my experience all i really make is the sepoy mansabar, sometimes a gurka one, but I only use a few gurka at a time. just to keep people from kiting my army essentially, to have one long range group that will hit far off units with not too much over kill, and then steam roll with sepoy and melee units. works vs many combos but not all.

[Superfly47]

Taj Mahal could function as a second consulate. Allowing India to have two alliances.

If this is not possible, Taj Mahal could double the consulate bonus. Ex. British would go from 5% hp to 10%.

[Imperial Noob]

Just double mansabdar damage, just like their HP is doubled. They will all become viable then. It's an elegant fix that requires no tinkering with the aura they give.

[duckzilla]

Just double mansabdar damage, just like their HP is doubled. They will all become viable then. It's an elegant fix that requires no tinkering with the aura they give.

I like it. I would just spam the mansabdar version of the Ginyu Force.

[howlingwolfpaw]

I dont think its that easy to balance the units. While a 800+ 106 sepoy might be strong but not too overpowered, a 4k+ mahout doing double damage or double howda would be a monster unit to deal with that would break most counters. even a imperial gurka would be 1 hit killing a lot of heavy infantry. A double siege elephant is all you would need for the most part. a double flail would be an exceptional unit finally though.

[duckzilla]

a double flail would be an exceptional unit finally though.

A fully upped double flail elephant would cost 250f/250c for ~1400hp/20dmg with speed 4. That's still complete crap, even with 50% RR. I would not even want to pay the original price of 125/125 for it.

Sorry flail, but I don't have a rose for you today.

[howlingwolfpaw]

I forget what the multiplier is but its got a decent siege value so I imagine it taking down barracks in a couple hits, and soaking a lot of damage. its still pretty useless unit, needs to have a big vil bonus since india does not have gret raiding options, that would make it tempting

[drsingh]

Ofcourse Mansabdar units never get made for elephants. I never have enough elephants to justify them because of their ridiculous pop requirement i.e. double of the unit. In some patch before this was fixed to 1+pop requirement of the unit, which actually only decreases the pop of elephant mansabdars and sowar.

I've also pointed this out few years back.

They have 1x attack, 2x hp.
If they had 1.5x resource and pop cost then making them would be beneficial even after 5 units.

[howlingwolfpaw]

Ofcourse Mansabdar units never get made for elephants. I never have enough elephants to justify them because of their ridiculous pop requirement i.e. double of the unit. In some patch before this was fixed to 1+pop requirement of the unit, which actually only decreases the pop of elephant mansabdars and sowar.

I've also pointed this out few years back.

They have 1x attack, 2x hp.
If they had 1.5x resource and pop cost then making them would be beneficial even after 5 units.

hmmm.... just got me thinking so a mansabar mahout would cost 9-10 pop but be the same as it is now.... Since its a relatively small buff (I think 10%) for just a couple units of mahouts as most never have more than 5 at a time what if it reduced the population of other mahouts by 1? maybe not necessary with that other change, but its a thought on how to make mahouts more viable, as in most 1v1 games they seem to get little hits off and need big numbers to sacrifice a couple before getting in the battle.

[aqwer]

After the otto and brit consulate nerf imo "British East India Company" deserves a buff to 15% att and hp.

[deleted_user0]

Carded colonial sowar has now 73 damage to skirms, much more than imperial hussar but they're sadly so paper that they die on the way to the army as you can't upgrade hp and even brit consu is nerfed XD

g-o-o-d shit

[knusch]

Carded colonial sowar has now 73 damage to skirms, much more than imperial hussar but they're sadly so paper that they die on the way to the army as you can't upgrade hp and even brit consu is nerfed XD

g-o-o-d shit

uhlan on roids xD

[princeofcarthage]

They are lancer type units not hussars high inf atk is normal

[zoom]

Just double mansabdar damage, just like their HP is doubled. They will all become viable then. It's an elegant fix that requires no tinkering with the aura they give.

Based on conversations with – and observations of – good players, it seems that non-elephant Mansabdars are sufficiently viable, already. I think that making any unviable ones viable in the future would be great, though.

What about halving population cost (so that it's identical to the regular counterpart), which would disproportionately buff the unviable Mansabdars, without risking any adverse effects on inter-civilization balance (balance between civilizations)? You could set the cost of non-elephant Mansabdars to +50% (instead of +100%), too, if desirable.

[zoom]

I was thinking about just giving them the same cost as their normal counterpart. I don't think it would become problematic.

I think that this change (provided that it isn't also reducing population cost) were the best solution, if buffing all Mansabdars is desirable, since it doesn't incentivize training the units for their solo combat performance, which seems to run counter to the design of the feature, and risks being overpowered.

[zoom]

As a result of Cuckoo's oddly-timed and relentless propaganda, I am continuing to look into the state of Indians, post-EP8.1, where the civilization has now seen the following significant changes, from EP7(.1):

– The Rajput gets +30% attack from "Dravidian Martial Arts" instead of +15%.
– The Sowar does +1/3 damage to Skirmishers etc (incidentally resulting in the unit having to reach its target a lot less, which is its alleged core problem).
– The Mahout Lancer does +75% damage to heavy infantry and -12.5% damage to Skirmishers etc (testing a popularly voted for, slight redesign of the unit, that should help in some notoriously tough match-ups, E.G against Chinese, Japanese and Ottomans).
– The Zamburak's ranged resistance is increased from 20% to 30%.
– The Siege Elephant is cheaper and has greater line of sight.

Although I'm hesitant to buff the civilization even more, without reasonable testing (it's been less than ten days since the release of EP8.1), discussion and feedback are essential to decisions on future updates.

Thank you all for your input and patience!

[duckzilla]

Someone suggested the general rule of "Pop cost of the original unit + 1" for mansabdars. This change would only affect the elephant units + sowars.
I like the idea, because it is simple, buffs the relevant units, and does not change anything for units which are already strong.