Comanche Thread

[duckzilla]

The Comanche Whore Archer makes the Keshik look Garja.

I also think Keshiks aren't as bad as people say, its just the fact they train with pikes or mortars. They cost only food and are 1 pop so if you could train them alone, they 'might' be decent. Alas you can't, so moot point. I was going to compare them to the Keshiks and still could, you know what, I just might, curiosity overpowers me. Brb .

Keshiks are bad because they are comparable to war wagons just worse: they share traits which benefit both a hit&run (fragility, low hp / ranged resistance) and a stand-your-ground gameplay (set up animation, rof 1.5). In my opinion, they are without doubt the worst designed unit in the game and a total failure already on paper.

edit:
The stats you posted allow the following comparison between keshik/CHA:
Cost: 136 - 243 (45% cheaper)
HP: 110 - 200 (45% less hp)
Res: 30rr - 10mr
Speed: 7.25 - 7.25
Dmg: 8 - 13 (20% less dmg)
Siege: 5 - 15 (66% less siege)

Keshik 110hp without any melee resistance + set up animation means that the one unit class they should counter (cav) is stronger than them.

[zoom]

Thanks! You shouldn't compare Chinese units' villsex based on their nominal cost, though. A Keshik never costs only food, in practice. The only relatively good thing about the Keshik, is its resistance.

[duckzilla]

Keshik 110hp without any melee resistance + set up animation means that the one unit class they should counter (cav) is stronger than them.

A Hussar costs close to twice the amount of villager seconds than a Keshik. Assuming that 2 Keshiks fight against 1 Hussar, the result should be the following:
Keshiks shoot first, but the setup animation means that they don't have more than one free shot. Two Keshiks together do 38.4dmg to a Hussar, while the Hussar does 30 dmg to the Keshiks. After taking 5 hits, the Hussar has 128hp left and kills the first Keshik with the fourth attack of himself. He is now in 1vs1 with the second Keshik and kill it after a further 4 strikes. The Hussar survives with 32-51.2 hp.

[dansil92]

Like, commanche are pretty bad but they do have an unusually high range which i always thought was their unit bonus vs other similar units. Basically the tupi (long range low hp low resist) of anticav? Also keshiks are not that terrible they just dont have a useful banner to train them from. If they trained with ckn or arq or basically anything else they would just be the strelets of anticav, but training them in their current banners is a bit... underwhelming

[duckzilla]

Like, commanche are pretty bad but they do have an unusually high range which i always thought was their unit bonus vs other similar units. Basically the tupi (long range low hp low resist) of anticav? Also keshiks are not that terrible they just dont have a useful banner to train them from. If they trained with ckn or arq or basically anything else they would just be the strelets of anticav, but training them in their current banners is a bit... underwhelming

Comanche have the same range of 12 as other cav archers. And strelets are a bad comparison since they have all advantages on their side: speed + instant shot allow for hit&run and ranged resistance is better to counter muskets than to counter melee cav.

Keshiks can rather be compared to Seminoles/Cetan/Aenna. Unfortunately, Keshiks are even worse than these units. Cetans/Aennas counter muskets, where ranged resistance is nice for long battles between them. It reduces your need to micro your units. That is not the case for Keshiks. In order to counter cavalry properly, Keshiks need to stay untouched for some time to make up for their setup animation. But cavalry can just charge at them and force them into melee combat, since China does not have good meatshields vs. cav. Here they just fail utterly as described above. The lack of instant shot also means that you can't do it in the Dragoon way by using hit&run for a minute to kill off the charging cavalry.

edit: even if Keshiks trained with arq or ckn, what would be the benefit? In that case, I would simply go pure melee cavalry against them. I would counter their entire army with it.

[Peachrocks]

Thanks! You shouldn't compare Chinese units' villsex based on their nominal cost, though

I know, but the curiosity. It's too strong!

[zoom]

Thanks! You shouldn't compare Chinese units' villsex based on their nominal cost, though

I know, but the curiosity. It's too strong!

Consider calculating the proportion of wood that they cost, based on their armies. EG:

Ming Army: 345f+180w
345+180=525
w cost=180/525x115=39.4
f cost=115-39=75.6

75f, 40w seems like a realistic unit cost. I think it's fair to say that this offers a decent approximation, for more useful information.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Talking about natives, we just had a 1:20:00 game between turk and tabben and neither of them used the 15 hurons native button lol.
It kinda proves my point, natives are situational, but top players don't use them even when they're good.

[Peachrocks]

Talking about natives, we just had a 1:20:00 game between turk and tabben and neither of them used the 15 hurons native button lol.
It kinda proves my point, natives are situational, but top players don't use them even when they're good.

Huron aren't good. That 15 unit button isn't worth it late game because you still have to upgrade them and still have to research it, which is a total cost of 1200 wood and 850 coin, counting the trade post. There's a reason I rated Huron on the bottom on my tier list. I don't even know what I'm gunna do to help their cause because most of it boils down to the fact Mantlets are just not very good units unless against very specific compositions and even there, you've usually got better options. If you're using Huron to take advantage of the fact you can get 30 extra units on the field, you've likely already won the game. They are simply a 'win more' at extreme best.

Having said that though, please do feel free to prove me wrong and use Iroquois mantlets which are significantly better in terms of stats and don't depend on the map. I mean that sincerely too. I wonder if Mantlets are just not utilized the right way or they actually are bad because they are tanky units which don't do enough damage in battle and thus can be ignored until everything around them is dead. It doesn't help that artillery beats them badly too.

[zoom]

Maybe having Natives auto-upgrade with age is something to consider.

[Peachrocks]

Maybe having Natives auto-upgrade with age is something to consider.

I thought about this but you would then need to change the blood brothers card to another effect. Maybe that's not a bad thing though. It never gets used.

What do you think on how the Comanche should be boosted? What would you like to see unique in a cavalry archer zoom?

[dansil92]

Iro mantlets have a place, they are just simply slow, not that they are bad. They have the same damage as a carded brit musk (25), 800 ranged hp (400 in melee) which is over 1/3 of a mameluke but with no ranged counters (except minutemen). If they were 4-4.5 speed they would be nearly unstoppable by anything short of very good cav. The 5 mantlet shipment in fortress is also more VS than 2 falcs. The immobility and mediocre range is really their only weakness.

Honestly, in a game vs Aztec iro can mass mantlets pretty freely and just push forward with them and some tomas or prowlers or muskets or kanya or...

Huron are less useful but not unusable, the 15 shipment button at the tp can be used fairly effectively to back door a player using a proxy outpost and catch them off guard

[zoom]

Maybe having Natives auto-upgrade with age is something to consider.

I thought about this but you would then need to change the blood brothers card to another effect. Maybe that's not a bad thing though. It never gets used.

What do you think on how the Comanche should be boosted? What would you like to see unique in a cavalry archer zoom?

It's a mess. The game is, in general. I haven't thought much about it. Maybe just buff attack or range, significantly – or give the unit a heavy infantry multiplier. Range buffs for all!

[Peachrocks]

Maybe having Natives auto-upgrade with age is something to consider.

I thought about this but you would then need to change the blood brothers card to another effect. Maybe that's not a bad thing though. It never gets used.

What do you think on how the Comanche should be boosted? What would you like to see unique in a cavalry archer zoom?

It's a mess. The game is, in general. I haven't thought much about it. Maybe just buff attack or range, significantly – or give the unit a heavy infantry multiplier. Range buffs for all!

That's partly why I decided against buffing range again. Heavy infantry multiplier is interesting though the purists will hate that and considering Cheyenne already get a tech that boosts them against cavalry, it could be dangerous giving Comanche a buff against Heavy Infantry seeing as these two appear together on a few maps. Or maybe that could be just what you are going for to give those maps flavour.

In any case I think the core thing in all nats should be it being able to do its job slightly worse than regular units but have a specialty or something different that makes it stand out from European or other counterparts. Going 14 range and slightly better HP/resist, lesser wood cost might be enough. Niche is more range. If you want to do something else inventive that's up to you.

[duckzilla]

What do you think on how the Comanche should be boosted? What would you like to see unique in a cavalry archer zoom?

What do you think about the different roles of anticav mentioned above? Do you think it makes sense to classify the units like that?
Should that be the case, then the only way to go is to make CHA a cav archer variety with a different focus than the standard cav archer.

Think of the standard Cavalry Archer as the Hussar of their class: neither too high dmg output nor too high hp - a very standard unit. Now there are different concepts such as the Uhlan or the Mamluk. Both of these could be a direction for the Comanche Horse Archer. Hence, I would propose to make it either of:

• The Uhlan-type: Keep low HP/resistance, but increase dmg output to be higher than standard cav archer: base 22 with * 2.25 vs cav and .5 vs villagers.
• The Mamluk-type: increase hp to 300-320 and melee resistance to 0.3, keep dmg output as it is.

In the first case, this would be a higher base and anticav dmg than a Bow Rider, which is slightly more expensive. The Bow Rider is better still, because of 1. higher HP (250 vs 200), 2. higher resistance (.3 vs .1) and 3. no negative bonus vs villagers.
The latter one would be the more unique choice. Hence, I would support the Comanche Horse Archer to become a tanky unit (vs melee) which could defend e.g. cannons without doing too much dmg itself. A support role basically.

What do you think?

[Peachrocks]

@duckzilla I agree wholeheartedly about the different types of ranged cavalry in the game, it does make sense to classify units like that.

I don't really mind 'how' it's boosted, just that it is. I think the bulky idea is better though typically natives don't have higher than 20 resist, so maybe more HP and 20 melee resist but that's up to the powers that be. Cost can be altered too because a large part of the reason it's so bad compared to other units is the immense wood cost.

[Mitoe]

Talking about natives, we just had a 1:20:00 game between turk and tabben and neither of them used the 15 hurons native button lol.
It kinda proves my point, natives are situational, but top players don't use them even when they're good.

Yeah it annoys me when it gets to that point and no one uses them haha.

[DracoWolfgand]

To be honest( NOT a top player here speaking ), I would only really use the Huron units if I am plaiyng as the Sioux and thus lack any form of specialized building destroyed. Though I guess it also makes for a halfway decent meatshield( Woodshield? )

Now, the Comanche on another hand, are kind of decent almost exclusevly due to being a light cavalry unit avaliable right on the Colonial Age. I personally feel you underestimate just how convenient that is for raiding/harassing tactics: Remember, most European civilizations not only lack a light cavalry unit on the Colonial Age, but their light infantry unit on this age, the Crossbowman... Sucks. This means the Comanche Horse archer is good for early-game raiding, what is what it is suppose to be good for. Does it rapidly becomes useless on the Fortress Age? Yes.

[duckzilla]

I don't see the Comanche in a useful raiding position. It does 13dmg multiplied by 0.5 against villagers -> 6.5 dmg per shot compared to a solid 24dmg a usual hussar would do. I don't think that you can raid french villagers with Comanche, since they would just destroy you. A french villager is actually cheaper and stronger than a Comanche... Comanche should also die really fast to TC fire, due to the lack of ranged resistance.

[Djigit]

It's not a priority but I wish Comanche Trade Language was -15% coin cost on improvements instead of 10%.
-20% as OP proposed would be too good imo.

[Kaiserklein]

Didn't read the thread but the comanche settlement is one of the better ones already. Building it just to get the cav hp is viable. The TP is cheaper than an arsenal and the 10% hp tech is also cheaper than the arsenal one. And then you still get to research the other 2 techs which aren't as strong but still situationally good. And if you happened to ship atp, which is definitely a thing on colorado or high plains, it's even better.

The comanche nat is crap, but if we start buffing that, we might as well buff half the nats and also rework the mercs.

[Peachrocks]

The comanche nat is crap, but if we start buffing that, we might as well buff half the nats and also rework the mercs.

That’s the plan. Seriously the posts are usually map decorations. I’m making threads on one native group at a time starting with the ones that I dislike seeing because the units are completely unusable.

[scarm]

I mean if the Techs are viable but the unit is shite or the other way round thats fine though right? Its not like every Tech and Unit in a Building needs to be good. Making Natives a Must-build is a balance and design disaster as others have pointed out.

Oh yeah and also did yo watch the Tabben vs Turk game that was mentioned? Idk but Huron Big button seemed really good there at some point, and diarouga and Garja both said so in twitch chat.

Also in very lategame free-pop is free-pop. There is a reason why natives are very common in treaty.

[Kaiserklein]

The comanche nat is crap, but if we start buffing that, we might as well buff half the nats and also rework the mercs.

That’s the plan. Seriously the posts are usually map decorations. I’m making threads on one native group at a time starting with the ones that I dislike seeing because the units are completely unusable.

I don't think we want to buff all this stuff though. There's so many shitty units in this game, buffing all of them would take lots of efforts and is also risky to some extent. And then why not make all cards viable too? It's just endless.

Also like I said comanche settlements are already viable, so let's be happy about it.

[zoom]

The comanche nat is crap, but if we start buffing that, we might as well buff half the nats and also rework the mercs.

That’s the plan. Seriously the posts are usually map decorations. I’m making threads on one native group at a time starting with the ones that I dislike seeing because the units are completely unusable.

I don't think we want to buff all this stuff though. There's so many shitty units in this game, buffing all of them would take lots of efforts and is also risky to some extent. And then why not make all cards viable too? It's just endless.

Also like I said comanche settlements are already viable, so let's be happy about it.

I mostly agree with this, but I think balancing native units is sensible, compared to balancing a given shipment. It comes down to priority and restraint, though.