AOE3 Forums

Whilst I agree that India is now a top-tier Civ, and may only require some very minor boosts, I still think they're units are nowhere near as good as their counterparts for other Civs, so here is my balance ideas for units, from most necessary to least:

Siege Elephant:
After the patch, these guys have become even worse, because they are the only units in the game that Skirms get the full x2 vs. (Skirms countering Artillery? What has the world come to?)

So these are my ideas:

• Remove Light Cav tag. I'm sure most people would agree with me when I say it shouldn't have been there in the first place.
  
• Remove penalties vs. Villagers and Cavalry
• Increase bonus vs. Artillery to 3 or 3.5, so that they actually counter them better than a falconet...
• (Optional: Increase Range by 2 to 30, OR add +2 Range with Honoured and Exalted upgrades)

Rajput:
Ok, these guys are basically melee musketeers for 35% more cost, so what I suggest is this:

• Either increase their Colonial Stats to their Fortress stats except health, which is increased to 165 (instead of 180). Also, their bonus vs. Cav is lowered to x2.5, so that they're not too good at everything.
  
• OR lower cost to something like 80 Food, 30 Wood. This makes them much more cost-effective.

Sowar:
After patch, these guys are no longer UP, however, considering that all other Cav got boosted too, this means they are still pretty crappy compared to their counterparts.

• I would suggest increasing their Colonial Stats to their Fortress stats, and lowering their speed to 7 (so that they're not too good.)

Mahout:
These guys can still only fight one type of unit cost effectively, so to make them more like conventional Cavalry (although not just a 7-pop Cuirassier), I suggest:

• Increase base damage to 35
• Lower bonus vs. Infantry to x1.5 (so they still do +60 Damage in Fortress Age)
• Increase penalty to HI from x0.66 to x0.75 (so that they can at least somewhat fight HI)
• Add x1.25 bonus vs. Artillery (so they're more like a Cavalry unit.)
• Remove penalty vs. Villagers.

"Failephant":
After the patch, these guys are even worse than what they were before, so my idea is giving them a radical change:

• Remove Cavalry Tag, so they are no longer countered by HI and RC
• Lower HP to 200, Ranged Resist down to 0.40 or 0.30
  
• Increase damage to 10, remove all bonuses and penalties
• Lower Siege damage to 75.

This way they are not countered by anything (except Minutemen and Oprinicks), still have good siege, and are better vs. all types of units, but not unkillable.

All of their other units are fine (and fine at what they do), and not all of these changes have to be made, because like I said before India is already a very good Civ. However, some things can't just be left unattended to, and I hope that these changes are fair.

Thoughts?
Laz.

w/e

india is OP if u play them right, just ask War_fire232

It is generally not in our balance philosophy to boost civs that we see as already overpowered, or at least in the top tier of civs, but I'll respond toyour points.

We''l' definitely take a look at the Siege Elephant tags in the next patch. That's not a promise to change anything, but just know that we're aware that they're in a kind of funky situation.

India's strength is already an incredible array of excellent age2 units and upgrades, so it doesn't make sense to boost the rajput, especially because a boosted rajput + sowar combo would be super, super deadly.

I don't know what you mean by "cav got boosted too" (but not the sowar?), so they're not as good as their counterparts. As it stands, the sowar is an awesome unit with excellent (3!) age2 upgrades. If a change is coming their way, it's probably a nerf.

I don't see the problem with Mahouts. Whats wrong with them being a more specialized unit? RI are found in almost every army, so it's not like Mahouts are obsolete; they're a great unit.

Finally, I don't understand why we would want to make the Flail Elephant essentially uncouterable. The role they fill right now seems pretty good to me: moderate cost, absolute building killers, but not much else. If you want to fight RI, build Sowars or Mahouts. =)
 

ES_MrMilo:

It is generally not in our balance philosophy to boost civs that we see as already overpowered, or at least in the top tier of civs, but I'll respond toyour points.

We''l' definitely take a look at the Siege Elephant tags in the next patch. That's not a promise to change anything, but just know that we're aware that they're in a kind of funky situation.

India's strength is already an incredible array of excellent age2 units and upgrades, so it doesn't make sense to boost the rajput, especially because a boosted rajput + sowar combo would be super, super deadly.

I don't know what you mean by "cav got boosted too" (but not the sowar?), so they're not as good as their counterparts. As it stands, the sowar is an awesome unit with excellent (3!) age2 upgrades. If a change is coming their way, it's probably a nerf.

I don't see the problem with Mahouts. Whats wrong with them being a more specialized unit? RI are found in almost every army, so it's not like Mahouts are obsolete; they're a great unit.

Finally, I don't understand why we would want to make the Flail Elephant essentially uncouterable. The role they fill right now seems pretty good to me: moderate cost, absolute building killers, but not much else. If you want to fight RI, build Sowars or Mahouts. =)
 

Ok, I agree with most of your points though. Like I said, I certainly didn't except to see even one of them make it into the game. It's just that some units I feel aren't as powerful as their cost/role says they should be.

What I mean by "Cav got boosted too" is that the Sowar got boosted with the Skirm penalty, however all other Melee Cav did too. I agree that they're attack is fine, but I would like to see a small HP increase, maybe change one of the cards to HP increase instead of something else.

Flailephants, yes, true they do kill buildings extremely well, but they're unusually slow and have no siege range. My change was a bit radical, but maybe even just remove all bonuses and penalties, now that they literally do almost no damage. And maybe a slight speed increase

Mahouts, Ok, true. But the thing is that other forms of Cavalry, e.g. Cuirassiers, counter not only RI but also artillery and, if they really have to, HI. I I think I was just unhappy about penalty vs. Villagers, so I would still like that removed.

Laz. 

The only military boosts I can see india needs for military is the removal of the tag from the siege elephant and lower the cost of the rajput a bit. Otherwise you can nerf most of the other units for all I care ...

I dunno...

IMO the next changes would be necessary imo:

1) Remove the LC tag from siege elephants.
2) change the sowar population to 1 (that way they fungate as a cossack, weaker than the 2 pop counterparts, but darn expensive for the pop cost , sowars are still 80 food, 80 gold, and their damage/HP is a joke compared to a hussar).
3) Make rajputs cheaper so they're actually worth getting. 80 food 40 wood or something like that. But 135 resources for a halberdier is silly.

They have not really been consistent with military age availability since the xpacks came out. It was fine in nilla where you had skirms-age3 and dragoons-age3. Dutch being an exception with skirms but that was part of what amde them a dutch ^^ Now we're just seeing random units flying all over the place - I mean india , a dragoon , a musk , a pike/halb , a skirm and sowar all in age 2??? At least move either the dragoon or the skirm up to age 3 - one is quite a privilage in itself but two izzz ridiculous.