Feldfeld

About priests researching tech, this could be hellenic and roman's priests special ailities following Lion.Kanzen's idea

Yes, I guess that the changes proposed by borg need some time programming. But some other balances like mauryan archer on elephant don't need nothing but a change in unit fighting statistics (sry don't have the word).

Only reducing their price won't change anything, because their influence is minimal, you can make them cost 50 food, even 1 food, I, and I think many other lobby players still won't make them because they just do nothing, it's a waste of micromanaging and a waste of population, most lobby players have more important thing to do.

1° That can work 2° But the issue is that not only you need to build that medical center, you also need your temple up and 1250 food for priests which is quite expensive at this stage of the game, it prevents you from growing economy.

1° Interesting proposition but have to be balanced wisely, with a group of priests maybe you can make a group of champions invicible for seconds. But at a certain point it can be useful even without being broken. Also, with this fast heal, you can consider that some can, in let's say 300 pop game, mass healers enough to constantly area heal army, because some priests would still heal while the cooldown has passed for others, so infinite heal. also, keep in mind that in fight infantry champions takes not that much place to fight so easy to heal. Healing wisely would maybe counter massed ranged units. 2°I think medical center as you described it would be not that much used, pretty slow healing rate, if you don't have 5 healers in you better go back to nearest temple but i might be wrong. Priests definitely need a change.

This is interesting, I said that because you said in top of your first post that you'll speak about underused upgrades but finally this is a thread about balancing all the tech. This is interesting indeed to make the player have to make a choice about whether upgrades he will choose ... because to me in the current state it is not difficult, I always make wood upgrade, and I make stone/metal if I have at least 1 additionnal stone/metal mine. So as stone tech would cost wood, maybe i can't choose all tech even if i'm interested in them ... Then maybe we have to discuss why a player would choose this stone tech instead of metal/wood/armour ... Certainly not to make the first fortress, you need it quickly so you make it before having the tech, exchanging ressources in market if necessary. So to my mind it would be to mass slingers or make a lot of towers.... This tech might become underused..

I agree to change all the techs except servants. I use sometimes servants, and making this tech cost wood would make it more expensive. When you get to age 3, if you plan to fight with infantry, you need to use infantry armour tech, they cost 1000 wood each. But you also need the eco techs, including wood, and metal if you have more metal mines that you can access. They also cost 1000 wood each. So I don't understand why you suggest the stone tech should cost wood.

I also have an azerty keyboard, and had the same issue. Indeed, I changed the keyboard shorcuts to make it work. Also, I am on windows if it can be helpful.

We can also consider increasing their starting grade (instead of increasing base HP and armour, which still seem very logical to me), so they won't only be tank but also will deal more damage. It is just an idea.

If you speak about rate of fire, it is the same as others horse archers. Sure. My question wasn't well asked. I'm speaking about game balance so that's why i took the exemple of lobby players. To my mind they need a buff because they're clearly worse than horse archers from other civs.

Why a mauryan player would make them ? Compared to horse archers from other civs, this unit is way slower despite having almost the same stats. They got a little HP bonus but it is clearly not enough to make them worth it. Not only they are slow, but they can't be as massed as other horse archers because they're elephants and take more place. So their pathfinding is also difficult, and that makes them really weak against spearmen, or if they want to retreat it's also tricky anyway. They also can't collect ressources. No wonder i never see them in pro games. Also, I guess the "go berserk" in description is not implemented. Will they be buffed in next alpha ?