Talk:Elephant Archer (Age of Empires II)/@comment-2003:DB:F3CD:492D:90EB:C11E:C049:CD9A-20190622155844

One of the worst additions in the entire series; like the devolpers thought "we need this particular unit in the game; don't care if it is of any use!" It literally gives me a headache to make sense of...

It's got more counters than one can count (no pun intended), it's HP are too low, it's main advantage it "should" have just isn't there (close combat threat, esp. to infantry. Give it some trample-damage atleast, goddamnit!(i)), as archer and cav-archer it pretty much sucks, and it's way too costly for all those downsides (it's like it only consists of downsides, AND THEN the price-tag to make it costly; because: balance!). Meat-shield? - nah! Distance-threat? - nah! Strong[yet expensive] counter against any particular class of units/an addition for the corresponding civs (indians) weak-point? - nah! - nah! - nah! ... a mounted archer being susseptible to anti-cav-archer bonus damage (even with an added "(-2)" for that matter! - yay! - the gift that keeps on giving!), without any speed as a saving-grace. What a joke!

Worst of all is this: it's a huge missed opportunity! Rather than this unit, the Indians could be well suited for some "Camel-Conquistador" sort of unit or a "Camel-Cataphract"(ii)! - or a hybrid of those two possibilities. I would have loved those (also: the imperial camel should be accessible to a few other Camel-heavy civs, like Arabs and Berbers; obviously this would require further balancing, but still...), and balanced correctly (not just by itself, but in regards to the entire civ, also), they would have made for a fun addition to the game.

They could still get some elephant unit. But an "elephant bombard canon" (like Medival2-TW, Timurids? - think "turtle-ship on land")) would make much more sense, gameplay wise, than this; or a light-version of the Siege-elephant  for that matter (why not give the Persians a second elephant unit instead? - if you wanna insist on having an elephant archer in the game!); I don't really care though. But as it stands it's the most useless "the unit is there just to be there at all" sort of additions; gameplay wise a terrible decision. I really hope they do something about this with the "definitive edition".

It's not even like the indians were useless. But it really rubs me the wrong way, when special units (a feature that, back in the days, was a major selling point and attampt, to make civs more unique and distinquishable; give them some real "character") are THIS nonsensical... Why have special units at all, when noone in their right mind would use them (Huns, anyone?).

/rant_over

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i) What's the historic use of such a unit, if not to combine the hulking close-combat menace of elephants with the ability to kill it's most potent threat before it comes close; i.e. pikes and such! Also: the advantage to be firing arows while moving around rather freely on the battle-field (like... you know: cav-archers?... but with up to three archers all on one mount. Like a walking tower...). But firing while moving isn't even possible in this game, so there's that! It's like they refused to commit to any such well-outlined use, for fear of it being a headache to balance; so afraid for it to possibly be OP, that it got totally useless instead! - yay! - because: balance! It's like selling kitchen-knives that are totally blunt, in order to prevent injuries... genius!

ii) A visibly heavily armored Camel; think "anti-cav" attack damage, an analog "anti-anti-cav" counter (armor-class boost; like with the Byzanthine-cataphract ("Cavalry +12/+14"), just for their corresponding camel-armor-class.), reducing some of the attack-bonusses it would be succeptible to. High cost, high value usage of pop-limit. It would have a more well-defined role; something to excell in, while (if balanced correctly) neither being OP nor unmanagable/useless (like the unit above...). As such it would not hurt, for the indians to have a second special unit. E.g. Siege elephant w/o elite-upgrade or something; with just ever-so-slightly lower costs post-imperial. Or the bombard-canon-elephant mentioned above! Additionally, make the normal camel line more of a cheap addition [for the indians] to round out the roster, by replacing additional armor with lower costs. They could even take the corresponding final armor class away from them, again, for that matter, same way they did it with the byzantine cataphract; to be the camel-line their "hungarian hussars" light cavalry pendant... That way the "Camel-Cataphract" would TRULY be the indian's answer to the knight-line!