Talk:Keshik (Age of Empires II)/@comment-2003:DB:F709:7FE4:2D61:B38F:227:2215-20191117125419/@comment-2003:DB:F709:7F57:159D:C221:FECF:486B-20191119173316

nah!

It really only seems to pertain to "minutes spend in attack animation"; SOTL says it's roughly 21.8/min, I found numbers between 21.68 and 21.98 (good enough); the larger the values the more it seems to trend towards 22g/min. - or 0.3666g/s

If you consider a villager can gather gold (walking not included) at 22.8g/min or 0.38g/s and UP TO  25.25g/min or 0.425/s (post imp), if I remember correctly, then, if we are generous, a Keshik gatheres Gold less efficiently than even a basic villager on a "per work" unit, and on a real time scale (considering constant dying of realistic targets, walking towards new "targets" becomes a huge, HUGE factor) there just isn't any comparison between the two.

It's hard to quantify how low the "average reasonable gather rate" becomes, once we factor that all in; if a Villager is constantly patroling in a circle, being healded by triggers, I observe a gather rate of between 12 and 13g per min; a little over half the "perfect" conditions, as the Keshik constantly has to catch up for each new attack cycle. Usually, engaging enemies that put up a fight, that chasing becomes less; in turn you risk losing your Keshik, which, if you see it as an economic investment, is even further from ideal. Thus the gather rate becomes worse, when considering that those pesky pinatas (villagers) don't take much abuse, and die too often (while those that do not (heavy targets) cost you the investment, regularly, putting you back another 50f/80g each time); finding new targets makes it much worse.

All in all, I am completely in the camp of "funny gimmick"/"[nice] silent bonus" (like "extra miles") but not in the camp of "interesting -" let alone "powerful ability". The 80g-cost, let alone the upgrade cost, by far outweight the small earnings you might expect, esp. when managed poorly (the main benefit for pillaging was, is and remains to hurt your enemies economy; doing that quickly and effectively takes precedence over "extra miles"). If you want a more cost-controlled unit, chevaliers might even be worth considering (lol). They have less attack (12 vs 14), and health (120 vs. 130), while trading pierce- for melee armor (2/2 vs. 1/3), but therefore cost much less to upgrade (! 400f/600g in total -- enough for between 6-8 Cavaliers!), and cost less gold (60f/75g vs. 50/80), and have the better attack speed (Keshiks are on par with Paladins; a difference of 1.83 (Cavalier) vs 1.93 (Paladin)) - not enough to offset the lesser damage, but still something; they are also trained at the stable, thus easier to mass. Aside from that, the Keshik is a tiny bit faster (1.35 Cavalier vs 1.4 Keshik/cav archers, vs 1.5 lightcav/steppe lancer)

- but given the current state of the steppe-lancer, you shouldn't think twice about allocating your resources to either of those 2 (Keshik/Cavalier), as that unit, in it's current state, is really OP, atleast in greater numbers. - leave the raiding to your outstanding Cavalry achers and support them with Steppe-Lancers and your also excellent light cavalry. Money well spent! - that is if you are willing to micro-manage your units properly, which should come naturally, as cav-heavy steppe-civs kind of require that; and with their hill-bonus that only becomes even more pronounced.

... so what's the use for the Keshik? - I really don't get it. Having an abundance of options for the same task can only lead to one or more being ignored entirely. If your opponents are that open that your Keshiks can just run around reaking havoc uncontested and pillaging an abundance of gold, you are probably just holding of on finally finishing that easy target. And even if you want to go Keshik anyway (maybe you want to ignore cav archers, despite the Tartars unique strengths with them, to save the costs for archer upgrades? odd choice), just rate his ability as a 5g average [delayed!] discount, at most. 10g, if you are being optimistic. Remember: you'll still need that unit in a variety of situations, once you allocate the resources, including against enemies that they aren't good against. In some matches you may field them for convenience, when having a castle anyway, but then being forgone, in favor of other units, w/o ever being upgraded, as those resource are better spent elsewhere.

They also don't work for me in trash wars; the light cav of the tartars is also too good to overlook, for no gold-cost at all (per unit), and even the steppe lancer costs 30g/unit only. Maybe with very tiny population-cap, they start making sense???

(/enough rambling)