Iberian champion cavalry

[Reyhan]

The Iberians have a champion cavalry unit which is extremely strong and I would recommend weakening it. This unit has the following specifications:

In my opinion it is overpowered, for these reasons:

1. The fire damage continues to hurt any victims even after they are out of range. Furthermore it can stack, so the damage is even greater in comparison to pure javelins. The fire also damages any buildings, making them effecive siege weapons as well as elite soldiers. The fire damage adds 6 more effective damage to per shot, which gives a total value of 42 damage per second. This is too much compared to 17.33 damage per second of Roman champion cavalry and 12.32 damage of spear champion cavalry.  

2. They have too much armour and health, so they are difficult to kill. 

3. The civilisation behind the production of these units is the Iberians, who offers defensive walls and superior towers that makes the player very likely to thrive until late game undisturbed. Therefore it is very likely that the player will train many of these units in late game and annihilate everyone. 

4. Their agility and range allow them to escape mass infantry unharmed. 

 

I agree that such an overpowered unit is fun to play with, but it is spoiling the game for anyone who didn't choose the Iberians as their civilisation. I propose two solutions to this problem:

1. Give this unit to another civilisation who has very little bonus in economy or defence, for example the Kushites or the Macedonians. 

2. Reduce their base javelin damage to a lower value, for example 30 (to match the Briton champion chariot) or 12.32 (to match champion spear cavalry).

 

I have 2 replays of games where they were used. In both games they were fighting outnumbered battles at a disadvantageous position but they still won the encounter with flying colours. 

2021-11-18_0004.zip2021-11-18_0006.zip

Please tell me what you think about them. I am not a veteran player myself but I am probably not the first one to flag up this issue.

[alre]

there is general consensus that both iberian cav champions, and iberians in general are OP.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Those fire mechanics are fun.

 

 

[Reyhan]

Not saying they aren't but they are just too strong given the Iberian background and javelin damage.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

5 hours ago, Reyhan said:

The Iberians have a champion cavalry unit which is extremely strong and I would recommend weakening it. This unit has the following specifications:

In my opinion it is overpowered, for these reasons:

1. The fire damage continues to hurt any victims even after they are out of range. Furthermore it can stack, so the damage is even greater in comparison to pure javelins. The fire also damages any buildings, making them effecive siege weapons as well as elite soldiers. The fire damage adds 6 more effective damage to per shot, which gives a total value of 42 damage per second. This is too much compared to 17.33 damage per second of Roman champion cavalry and 12.32 damage of spear champion cavalry.  

2. They have too much armour and health, so they are difficult to kill. 

3. The civilisation behind the production of these units is the Iberians, who offers defensive walls and superior towers that makes the player very likely to thrive until late game undisturbed. Therefore it is very likely that the player will train many of these units in late game and annihilate everyone. 

4. Their agility and range allow them to escape mass infantry unharmed. 

 

I agree that such an overpowered unit is fun to play with, but it is spoiling the game for anyone who didn't choose the Iberians as their civilisation. I propose two solutions to this problem:

1. Give this unit to another civilisation who has very little bonus in economy or defence, for example the Kushites or the Macedonians. 

2. Reduce their base javelin damage to a lower value, for example 30 (to match the Briton champion chariot) or 12.32 (to match champion spear cavalry).

 

I have 2 replays of games where they were used. In both games they were fighting outnumbered battles at a disadvantageous position but they still won the encounter with flying colours. 

2021-11-18_0004.zip 426 kB · 4 downloads 2021-11-18_0006.zip 234 kB · 4 downloads

Please tell me what you think about them. I am not a veteran player myself but I am probably not the first one to flag up this issue.

I have used the iber champions in many TG's since the release of a25, they are indeed quite overpowered. I now feel kinda bad when I use them. There are things in the game that can beat ibercav (this chamion and CS cav that can go with it), and that would be persian, roman, gaul and perhaps seleucid champion/CS cavalry mixture. The main thing is that these civs have fantastic cavalry of their own as well as heroes to go with it (iber has no cavalry hero). I will say that while these civs and their cavalry can beat iberian champion cavalry, it takes much more skill to counter the firecav than it does to use them.

Usually, once the firecav are greater than 20 in number, then there is nothing you can do. However, there are a bunch of different ways to stop the iber player from making champions. Delivering a fast, sudden and large attack (all available CS) will make it harder for your enemy to keep units working while only fielding a small army.

I have thought about how OP fire damage is, both in damage to units, and to buildings. Previously I have said that the best way to nerf them was to reduce their armor. 

What if firecav only got their fire effect as a short boost and it took 2 minutes to recharge (out of pitch, I guess)?

 

 

[Dizaka]

To get to the point that the game plays on fire champs ... requires for a player to not be attacked for 17, or so, minutes.  You need:

• Phase 3 in 12/13 min. 
• Suitable number of stables.
• Sufficient metal mines.
• Sufficient food producers.
• Probably all forge upgrades + will to fight to be effective (min 15.5 max 17 min)

If you don't attack a player for 17 minutes ... especially an Iber player ... those skrim champs deserve to burn down every single town.

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

If cavalry are given acceleration values that are slower than CS, cavalry players would need to be more careful, and palisades would be more effective at slowing down cavalry. If this is combined with eliminating the extra fire damage of firecav to units, then it would be a good starting point.

11 minutes ago, Dizaka said:

To get to the point that the game plays on fire champs ... requires for a player to not be attacked for 17

I notice few players can do a conventional attack at min 15 and still make firecav on time. I usually do a small attack with about 100 men and a ram or two, and then retrain directly into the firecav and/or CS cavalry depending on the resources stocked. It can be overwhelmed if a player makes a big enough army to steamroll before my champions come out.

 

[alre]

5 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Those fire mechanics are fun.

How? You can barely notice it happens by digging into the statistics, and those are not even complete, because units and buildings have fire resistance, which is hidden and there is no way to tell how good it is. Besides, this mechanic gives to an arbitrary unit, alone in the game, as it was the only one in history to use fire, the ability to do considerable damage to any other unit and building, without exception (that I know of) or defense. How is all this fun?

[Freagarach]

10 minutes ago, alre said:

because units and buildings have fire resistance

(They don't.)

7 hours ago, Reyhan said:

Reduce their base javelin damage to a lower value

Sounds like a good tradeoff? Lower base damage for a long term effect.

[alre]

On 25/10/2021 at 8:37 AM, Freagarach said:

(It doesn't ignore armour, most units just don't have resistance against fire damage. ^^ )

now I'm confused, who is it that have fire resistance?

[Lion.Kanzen]

40 minutes ago, Freagarach said:

They don't.)

We should add.

In modern RTS this will already be a reality.

[Reyhan]

2 hours ago, Dizaka said:

To get to the point that the game plays on fire champs ... requires for a player to not be attacked for 17, or so, minutes.  You need:

• Phase 3 in 12/13 min. 
• Suitable number of stables.
• Sufficient metal mines.
• Sufficient food producers.
• Probably all forge upgrades + will to fight to be effective (min 15.5 max 17 min)

If you don't attack a player for 17 minutes ... especially an Iber player ... those skrim champs deserve to burn down every single town.

I think I can produce a significant number of them in less that 17 minutes. 

Iberians discourage the enemy from rushing them and are also harder to push than other civilisations. The Iberian player can set up 4 stables inside their walls of behind their base and produce champions while fighting. If the champion cavalry is given to another civilisation (not Ptolemies) then this would be less of a problem.

[Fabius]

Let us not forget that Iberians have Indibil who drops resources costs on units by 15 % and gives a 20 % training time bonus. Therefore allowing for greater mass production.

[Fabius]

2 hours ago, Reyhan said:

I think I can produce a significant number of them in less that 17 minutes. 

Iberians discourage the enemy from rushing them and are also harder to push than other civilisations. The Iberian player can set up 4 stables inside their walls of behind their base and produce champions while fighting. If the champion cavalry is given to another civilisation (not Ptolemies) then this would be less of a problem.

Giving them to someone else wont resolve the core issue that fire cav are inherently broken, one because skirmishers in general are broken, and two because if I understand their fire mechanic right they are stacking their own bonus damage on each attack, to the point they can ignore armour with impunity. Which is why they are killing buildings so easily as well. Third tier blacksmith upgrades didn't help either

[Dakara]

Hello,

 

First i think this unit need to be balanced with the chariot britons. Because it the same unit but iberians champion have more dammage cuz they have fire attack.

So nerf attack of ibere champ a little for they have the same attack of chariot britons.

Then we need see if orther champ of other civ have a chance against this unit. 

The range / mobility advantage combined with the highest damage range in the game with buffs is the kill combo.

I am sure of the uselessness of the so-called anti cav units against this unit. What to do then?

2 minutes ago, Fabius said:

Giving them to someone else wont resolve the core issue that fire cav are inherently broken, one because skirmishers in general are broken, and two because if I understand their fire mechanic right they are stacking their own bonus damage on each attack, to the point they can ignore armour with impunity. Which is why they are killing buildings so easily as well. Third tier blacksmith upgrades didn't help either

Yes 20% dammage of litlte dammage or big dammage is not the same. 71 attack it insane x) 

[Fabius]

9 minutes ago, Dakara said:

Hello,

 

First i think this unit need to be balanced with the chariot britons. Because it the same unit but iberians champion have more dammage cuz they have fire attack.

So nerf attack of ibere champ a little for they have the same attack of chariot britons.

Then we need see if orther champ of other civ have a chance against this unit. 

The range / mobility advantage combined with the highest damage range in the game with buffs is the kill combo.

I am sure of the uselessness of the so-called anti cav units against this unit. What to do then?

Yes 20% dammage of litlte dammage or big dammage is not the same. 71 attack it insane x) 

Consular have no chance because of the high hack armour on fire cav compared to return damage taken. Cataphracts may still have a slim chance given their 1.5 damage modifier against cavalry and higher health pool, but I honestly think they will still lose badly. Bolt shooters no longer have the fire rate of A23 and catapults have no area damage. And infantry dies or cannot do enough damage to merit them even trying. As it stands there is no hard counter

[Reyhan]

There is another solution: make this unit completely unaffordable in most games, like the will to fight tech. We can raise the cost of each champion cavalry to 300 food, 300 wood, 200 stone and 250 metal. If you want to assemble an army of 20 fire cavalry, you would need 5000 metal, 6000 food and wood as well as 4000 stone. Not many people can afford this in a team game without being an useless team mate. 

At this cost, they can only be trained 1 by 1, which is a lot less deadly. 

[artoo]

4 minutes ago, Reyhan said:

There is another solution: make this unit completely unaffordable in most games

I think that would the the right direction to take.

The Han elite archers also have capability to switch to fire arrows.

I was considering simply a limit, say one regiment of 20 can be built only.

An upkeep could be added to make them expensive as well, so you can't field many of the champ units.

[Reyhan]

Just now, artoo said:

Han elite archers

What is this? 

Limit on number is also good. I think it's gg when someone had 30 of these. 

[artoo]

4 minutes ago, Reyhan said:

What is this? 

Very powerful unit, best limited in numbers, but Han may only have 2 champ unit types.

Not sure yet.

[Dakara]

13 minutes ago, Reyhan said:

There is another solution: make this unit completely unaffordable in most games, like the will to fight tech. We can raise the cost of each champion cavalry to 300 food, 300 wood, 200 stone and 250 metal. If you want to assemble an army of 20 fire cavalry, you would need 5000 metal, 6000 food and wood as well as 4000 stone. Not many people can afford this in a team game without being an useless team mate. 

At this cost, they can only be trained 1 by 1, which is a lot less deadly. 

This was already the case in the past, no metal in map and big cost, seeing champions were quite rare.

not sure this is the right way

 

6 minutes ago, Reyhan said:

What is this? 

Limit on number is also good. I think it's gg when someone had 30 of these. 

bad idea. limit unit

[a 0ad player]

Quote: "Don't change the gameplay please. We really need loading of multiplayer matches and better performance instead." (I agree)

Why? Because fire cav works well with 30+ units. To demolish buildings 50+ units are advantageous. In short fire cav is a late P3 unit. Iber has a strong eco but no continuous powerspike.
Briton and Gaul are the only civs that also only have rams as siege weapons, but have p2 and early p3 powerspikes and good p1 harassment potential. Iber boom can be harassed very well in p1 using cav, especially spear cav. The eco bonus helps with skirmishers and iber is vulnerable to swort cav harassment in p2. Iber food eco can be harassed well by cav archers. I find the iber towers more of a disadvantage because they cost more and are easier to take over due to the larger footprint. The Iber wall secures the food eco but hinders the eco growth, which is why some players tear it down in parts.

To really take advantage of the fire cav, a 30+ fire cav and a cav army are recommended. A large material and time investment. As a strong unit in a spearman, swordsman, skirmish army the mobility is far less and the damage potential as well (ford, turret...defenses work). If someone builds up iber fire cav I just use skirm, swort cav to keep the numbers small. The short range of the fire cav is its weakness and means that losses in hp or units will occur. If someone uses that many units for the eco those groups can be overwhelmed or the eco slowed down. If someone is not fighting in early p3, one of the allies can be overwhelmed (doubled) in TG.

I think there are enough ways to prevent a larger number of fire cav. Why every unit has to be a copy of another unit and can't stand for itself (unique selling point) I don't understand. An op army after 25+ minutes in the game without being harassed I find ok.

[Fabius]

58 minutes ago, Reyhan said:

There is another solution: make this unit completely unaffordable in most games, like the will to fight tech. We can raise the cost of each champion cavalry to 300 food, 300 wood, 200 stone and 250 metal. If you want to assemble an army of 20 fire cavalry, you would need 5000 metal, 6000 food and wood as well as 4000 stone. Not many people can afford this in a team game without being an useless team mate. 

At this cost, they can only be trained 1 by 1, which is a lot less deadly. 

This is a bad idea, we still want to enjoy using it. For example I enjoyed using Roman siege in A23 and then it got nerfed into the ground in A24 onwards and I am still annoyed at that. I am certain there are players who enjoy using fire cav because its a unique entity for all intents an purposes, much like Roman Siege from A23. If you going to impose this level of cost you may as well not have them in the game and you'll have a dead feature and frustrated players as an end result. 

A better option is to simply make the fire damage apply only to buildings, setting people on fire with a pointy stick seems rather unrealistic, its not a movie. 

[Gurken Khan]

I find some suggestions ITT rather exotic and non-appealing.

If there's so much agreement that they're OP let's just nerf them some. Lower their base damage a bit and maybe make the fire only applicable to buildings.

[Fabius]

2 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

I find some suggestions ITT rather exotic and non-appealing.

If there's so much agreement that they're OP let's just nerf them some. Lower their base damage a bit and maybe make the fire only applicable to buildings.

That seems like a good resolution to the problem