Suggestions (PvE) for Some Underused Units

A

apolippo

Long Swordsman
Sep 16, 2021
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First of all, I want to let you know that I'm aware of the fact that PvE "balance" is not something that is cared much. However, I think balance changes in PvE can bring some new fun aspects to the game which are normally not used very much. I think there are a few units that are underused with fair reasons. Please hear me out about the balance change suggestions and correct me if my suggestions are not "fine" and if you find them not appropriate or overpowered.

Cataphracts: Cataphracts are currently over-shined by Asabaras, both in damage aspect and in damage aspect pound-by pound. I suggest Cataphracts have one area damage like Champions do, without taking asabaras role completely (asabaras still have more damage output to single units, and are quicker when raiding)

Gastraphetes: Gastras , after the introduction of Alexander the Great, become kind of invalid. Gastraphetes have roughly about 80-90 damage depending on gear while Toxotai have 70-75 ish damage despite only taking one pop. There is simply no point in training gastraphetes when you have a superior, and quicker moving unit in as early as Age II. Without unnecessarily making one of them dealing more damage than another, Gastraphetes could use a speed buff, or splash damage reduction in the base form without any advisors, or both! In that way, one can still reasonably train gastras if the enemy is mostly conists of infantry as they have more inf bonus damage.

Royal Guard (Babylonian Infantry)
Royal guards are underwhelming sadly, by their lack of pierce armor (visually wielding shields :p ) , and they are only available as late as in Age IV. I cannot even remember the last time I or any of my coop partners training this unit for ages. This is saddening, since I like the concept of this unit. The solutions I suggest for this unit :
1) Give them 20% pierce armor (the same as upgraded longswords OR immortals ). This will help them resisting heavy fort fires or ranged units at range, making them a bit more self-dependant.
2) Make them trainable at age III , so players can actually consider them worth training in mid phase of quests against infantry. When somebody aged to last age, it is almost pointless to mass train those units to take out the enemy bases when you have Lancers / palintonons/ chariots. So, if they are trainable at age3, royal guards can be used to defend against enemy waves early until one fully booms and create a more functional army.

Lastly, I want to point out that none of the suggestions made here does necessarily come out of my mind. I heard those suggestions from the players overall the community. [ I loved the idea of cataphracts' having one area damage from Frogpoison :D ]
 
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I just hope this post won't get ignored. Even though most of the celeste staff is pvp'ers, I know for a fact that they do care about PvE balance.
They fixed the weird champion upgrade of Celtic Champions (it was previously 35% Hp, 35% Damage and +1 pop). Also, they showed love to underused units by giving them specific advisors , such as giving Lady Davicna for Shield bearers. It is especially sad for Cataphract which is such a cool and iconic unit but gets overpowered by Asabaras in nearly each aspect possible.
 
Is Gastra underused just because the Toxotes got an advisor and became viable in legendary quests? Are you kidding me? You know what are underused? Farbjoðrs and Harjars. Seriously, whats the point of training them if you get acces to the Berserkers at the same time?
 
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Kulcsos12 said:
Is Gastra underused just because the Toxotes got an advisor and became viable in legendary quests? Are you kidding me? You know what are underused? Farbjoðrs and Harjars. Seriously, whats the point of training them if you get acces to the Berserkers at the same time?
Click to expand...
I agree about Harjars completely, but Farbjo(?)rs are another story. All kind of battering rams are pointless to train in legendary quests, except Babylonian ram which have the most HP to resist even against elite units. Training battering rams in any legendary quest is pointless.
About Gastraphetes, I disagree with you. Tell me, would you prefer to train a 80- damage dealing unit taking 2 pop or create a quicker unit with 70 damage and only 1 pop. If you instead train two toxotai, the damage outcome is 140ish, insanely overpowered even when compared to other archer units in other civilastions. However I am against to nerfing units in PvE because I don't care about op units in pve. That is why I want gastraphetes to be buffed instead of simply nerfing Toxotai.
 
Actually, the DPS in the stat card don't tell you the truth about the real damage output. I don't have the correct numbers but these two units have different aiming time, arrrow flight time, reload time and real damage on hit. Gastras shot faster than Toxos, belly bow arrow fly faster thanks to its flat ballistic and take bigger damage on hit than the actual DPS on the stat card. This is compensated with the slower reload time what you can "skip" with "kiting" and when you press the Stop command your Gastras shoot the target immediatelly(!). In the other hand, Toxos have bigger aiming time and the arrows spend more time in the air (especially on long range shot) but reload faster. So, kiting with Toxos isn't as effective as with Gastras. In my opinion. Overall, both unit is good enough in a right hand. ;)
 
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First off, Cataphract's having 1 area damage wasn't my idea, it was somebody else. Just for the record.

On the topic of Gastras, I would prefer both. I feel that Ptolemais should be repurposed as solely the Gastra advisor. I would remove both bonus damage portions frm Ptolemais, since between Gastra's 3x infantry boost and Greek Fire, Gastra's don't really need help with either of those units, and instead give them +30% MS (or 6.5 MS base) to help with their incredibly strong kiting capabilities, along with full splash damage immunity, given that they are a higher pop ranged unit, but have extremely low HP (Higher pop range tend to have significantly larger HP pools, but Gastra are only slightly tankier then Toxoes). As there is another Indian unit arriving with Splash Damage Immunity as their champion mode upgrade, I feel there is nothing wrong with giving Gastra Splash Damage Immunity via their advisor.

With both upgrades combined, Gastra would once again become an incredibly strong deathball option, without overtaking Toxotes which would simply have much higher overall damage output for those who prefer a more passive style of Deathball.
 
On the topic of Royal Guards, I've brought it up on the discord and would like to bring it up here - Do Royal Guards have a larger collision or hitbox compared to most other infantry? It seems that their hitbox is a good bit larger then that of Spearman, Shieldbearers, and especially Sappers, seeming to be almost Berserker size. If it is, I feel that making their box smaller, along with upping their movement speed to 7-8 would make them quite viable in PvE, considering that their overall defensive stats with Zu are quite solid, their baseline damage is tremendous, and even with their nerfed champion mode upgrade, they still have quite high building damage per-pop being better then most cavalry units and middling among infantry.
 
Now, on to other units. The first unit type in PvE that could be looked at are ranged anti-ranged units - The Takabara shows that with enough range and damage you can make a perfectly viable deathball unit out of this and similar units. Sadly, most anti-ranged ranged units are simply incredibly understatted in raw stats, having either very low health per pop, low damage, low range, or a combination.

Takabara's are probably the best example of the least "specialized" anti-ranged ranged unit, having double doses of range for it's upgrades as well as the lowest bonus vs range, sitting at only 2x bonus, in exchange raw damage stat, but a good number of other ranged units are only a single advisor or buff away from being able to match the Takabara - Notably the Balearic Slinger and Peltast, both of whom would be a viable deathball unit if they had a large range buff. We even have the Carpentom who almost never comes up in discussion of "sucky ranged units" despite being a very short ranged anti-ranged unit, due to it's incredibly high damage potential.

Of course, there's also the Babylonian War Chariot on the other side of the spectrum, as despite having massive advisor support it's not even close to viable but instead can compete for worst unit in the game, mainly due to it's incredibly low damage per pop, as well as it's overall low health per pop in addition to it's completely lackluster range. Given how intensively it was reworked in PvP - Significant damage boost, gargantuan boost to EH vs range/siege, ect - something similar needs to occur in PvE. Fortunately most other similar units aren't in as bad a spot as the War Chariot, but it's something to consider.
 
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frogs.poison said:
Now, on to other units. The first unit type in PvE that could be looked at are ranged anti-ranged units - The Takabara shows that with enough range and damage you can make a perfectly viable deathball unit out of this and similar units. Sadly, most anti-ranged ranged units are simply incredibly understatted in raw stats, having either very low health per pop, low damage, low range, or a combination.

Takabara's are probably the best example of the least "specialized" anti-ranged ranged unit, having double doses of range for it's upgrades as well as the lowest bonus vs range, sitting at only 2x bonus, in exchange raw damage stat, but a good number of other ranged units are only a single advisor or buff away from being able to match the Takabara - Notably the Balearic Slinger and Peltast, both of whom would be a viable deathball unit if they had a large range buff. We even have the Carpentom who almost never comes up in discussion of "sucky ranged units" despite being a very short ranged anti-ranged unit, due to it's incredibly high damage potential.

Of course, there's also the Babylonian War Chariot on the other side of the spectrum, as despite having massive advisor support it's not even close to viable but instead can compete for worst unit in the game, mainly due to it's incredibly low damage per pop, as well as it's overall low health per pop in addition to it's completely lackluster range. Given how intensively it was reworked in PvP - Significant damage boost, gargantuan boost to EH vs range/siege, ect - something similar needs to occur in PvE. Fortunately most other similar units aren't in as bad a spot as the War Chariot, but it's something to consider.
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I agree about most of the points you made about anti-ranged ranged units. About royal guards, I find your points interesting, I didnt think about them being underwhelming because of low speed. You said with epic advisor their defense become high enough. I don't know if BDP increases their defense against pierce attack enough (Some ranged attacks do not have bonus damage to benefit from BDP stat). I am instead obsessed with giving them pierce armor because it seems weird to me how, even such an age-2 classic anti infantry unit hypaspist can have pierce armor with an advisor but when it comes to Royal Guards, they have 0% pierce armor. Visibly, they wield shields at one hand :D instead of carrying their shields at their backs like hypaspist ( but they still have pierce armor :D :D ). All in all, even a speed boost by 1 or 1.5 would be enough to make them a bit more viable in legendary quests.
 
apolippo said:
I agree about most of the points you made about anti-ranged ranged units. About royal guards, I find your points interesting, I didnt think about them being underwhelming because of low speed. You said with epic advisor their defense become high enough. I don't know if BDP increases their defense against pierce attack enough (Some ranged attacks do not have bonus damage to benefit from BDP stat). I am instead obsessed with giving them pierce armor because it seems weird to me how, even such an age-2 classic anti infantry unit hypaspist can have pierce armor with an advisor but when it comes to Royal Guards, they have 0% pierce armor. Visibly, they wield shields at one hand :D instead of carrying their shields at their backs like hypaspist ( but they still have pierce armor :D :D ). All in all, even a speed boost by 1 or 1.5 would be enough to make them a bit more viable in legendary quests.
Click to expand...

you can increase their defense with Zahhak's Sword of the Undying ;)
 
apolippo said:
I agree about most of the points you made about anti-ranged ranged units. About royal guards, I find your points interesting, I didnt think about them being underwhelming because of low speed. You said with epic advisor their defense become high enough. I don't know if BDP increases their defense against pierce attack enough (Some ranged attacks do not have bonus damage to benefit from BDP stat). I am instead obsessed with giving them pierce armor because it seems weird to me how, even such an age-2 classic anti infantry unit hypaspist can have pierce armor with an advisor but when it comes to Royal Guards, they have 0% pierce armor. Visibly, they wield shields at one hand :D instead of carrying their shields at their backs like hypaspist ( but they still have pierce armor :D :D ). All in all, even a speed boost by 1 or 1.5 would be enough to make them a bit more viable in legendary quests.
Click to expand...

Yea, RG may be a bit lacking in the armor depart on further inspection, though again I'm not sure if pierce armor is the answer - Pretty much all bow/arrow units in the game get ~20% bonus damage vs infantry due to gear sources. On top of that, nearly every Archer typ unit has bonus damage vs infantry - Exceptions include Babylon War Chariot, Mounted Archers, Celtic Archer, and Elephant Archer. For Anti-ranged range units, the only one thats threatening in PvE is the Carpentom - All other's damage output is garbage and are thus non-threats, even in huge masses.

With that said, RG did gain a .2 pierce armor buff in Champion Mode, along with a age reduction, being A3, as well as cheaper cost, and a reduction to their building damage nerf to 25% from 50%. They seem to be solid in PvP.
 
Hijacking this thread to post some PvE related things from Discord regarding Anti-Range ranged units in PvE
 
  1. We can see that the Takabara sits at 52 dps per pop, and 40.13 range. The range makes Takarbara a viable deathball unit, and the DPS shows that the Takabara is at a decent spot - Most range deathballs currently clock in around 50-60 DPS per pop
  2. [7:04 PM]
    then we have the Carpenom, who only has 21 range, and only 47 dps per pop, but has splash damage, which makes it pretty good at killing armies, and decent at taking out towers and such that the frontline can't get to
  3. [7:09 PM]
    Now, looking at the remaining Javelin users - The Peltast, Skirmisher, and War Chariot - we can see that the Peltast DPS is pretty solid. It won't be competing with the Toxotes or even Gastra, but it's dps places it at viable. The issue is that it lacks range, having the worst range stat out of all these units (edited)
  4. [7:11 PM]
    Thus, with the Peltast, it's range has to be drastically increased - If 37 is the minimum range needed, then the Peltast needs nearly a 90% range boost to become viable.
  5. [7:13 PM]
    Fortunately, Peltast already has an A4 advisor - Simply increasing the range portion on Alexander for the Peltast to 120% will be enough to make the Peltast viable in PvE - Not optimal, especially with the Toxotes, but viable among all range deathballs.
    1. Now, Skirmishers and War Chariots are quite a bit closer to the min range needed - Skirmishers sit at 33 range, and War Chariotss sit at 30 range. In the case of Skirmishers, I think that changing Beorix back to his previous iteration - Buffing Skirmishers and Archers - Would be enough of a boost. Of course, Norse Archers are currently pretty strong, so it might be prudent for the old effects of Beorix to apply only to the Skirmisher. (edited)
    2. [7:18 PM]
      Beorix's previous values would increase Skirmisher's DPS to 43 as well - A bit on the low side, true, but it's a start.
    For War Chariots, I've done the number crunching here before - Giving War Chariots the same stats in PvE as they have in PvP is enough to boost them to viable. 20 baseline range gives them 37 range with the listed loadout. And the increased DPS makes them an excellent army killer, though they would struggle a bit with buildings
 
On the topic of Slingers - Of the 4 slingers, the Celtic Slinger has the highest damage output with a crit-based build, sitting at nearly 47 dps. The Balearic Slinger has the highest range, sitting at ~27 range. These numbers are based on this loadout https://unitstats.projectceleste.com/?build=095c64c7bd370eb5466b6ce4e470fac7e468305368e703d7a0eb3d81

Both the Babylon Slinger and Egyptian Slingers are sitting very low on the damage charts, and both have low range.

Note that except for the Celtic Slinger, all other slingers lack any form of unit-specific advisor support.

Thus, Slingers need anywhere from a seperate 40% range boost (In the case of the Baleric Slinger), up to a 80% range boost, in the case of the Egyptian and Celtic Slingers.

As for damage, all Slingers need a sizeable damage boost - Most valid range Deathball units are in the 50-60 single target dps per pop range. According to some players, range units need at least 70 single target dps per pop to be usable in 5 star quests.

Thus, here are my suggestions.

Babylon - A new Age 2 advisor that greatly boosts the damage and range of the Babylon Bowman and Slinger, with a somewhat larger boost to the Slinger. Alternatively, these effects could be added onto Lady Devinca if adding a new set of advisors is currently not for consideration.
Egypt - Add a sizeable Slinger bonus to Sobek, as Sobek currently affects the other 2 Egyptian Barracks units.
Celts - Not too sure here. An A2 Celtic Advisor that increases the range and perhaps adds Ignore Armor to Celtic Slingers? Their reliance on crit as a DPS mechanic means that any change to baseline DPS has an amplified effect.
Balearic Slingers - For an interesting twist, an advisor that increases the range of both the Balearic Slinger as well as the Cretan Bowman (Both units are close to each other in range) by 40%, and then 50% of the units Bonus Damage is applied to all unit types. This would both bring the two units damage closer together in generic gear, and also allow for gear experimention.
 
After additional discussion on Ram-type units in PvE, it was determined that a Cost and Train Time reduction across the board in PvE is probably the safest route to go.

New players have a difficult time dealing with Rams in PvE, especially with elite rams - These players often rely on towers and walls to defend themselves against the AI, and Rams completely wreck through such defense. Thus, buffing health, damage, or armor on Rams in PvE will make new players have a significantly harder time vs Rams.

However, cost, train time, and population of Rams has a minimal affect on AI power. Thus, modifying any of these stats can be a way to buff Rams in PvE without making the game harder for newer players.

A 30% cost and train time reduction for all Rams in PvE was suggested, and I feel that is a good starting point to help make Rams more usable in PvE.
 
In pvp, the rams are good as cost effective building dmg as game progresse. Other units don't have bonuses vs buildings for most part (no advisors) and you play more to the strength of each unit type and don't end up massing age4 ultimate armies before you attack. In pve, as you rarely push age 3, normally defend, built complete age 4 army and then attack, rams tend to get skipped.

There are effectively 3 types of buildings, from point of view of destroying buildings:
- Walls - high hp, but have mechanic where hitting adjacent wall sections damages all sections, because of this mechanic units with splash dmg do very well against wall, broadly comparable or even better than rams.
- Fortresses, Guard Towers and Town Centers - high health buildings - Rams are more effective against these.
- All other buildings - low-med health, easy for all units to destroy. For production buildings you want faster units with snare resistance or immunity that can move past enemy units and take down the buildings, rams could do the building dmg but move speed and defenses against units isn't great, so its nots effective to send rams out to take these types of buildings.

So of the three core building types, rams are only good at one type. In ideal world it would be good if rams were excellent at taking down walls and good at high hp buildings, then use you other units to engage enemy units and take out production buildings. A solution might be to add splash dmg to rams, so they are more effective vs walls.

Overall a slight increase to building bonus dmg could be helpful, could also do a reduction to other units ability to do bonus building dmg from advisors etc. This would encourage more mixed army gameplay, however players enjoy current gameplay so adding new gameplay options without removing existing options is probably best. Another option might be a gearing solution, an Engineering accessory with bonus building.

Base improvements to rams would also make enemy rams more powerful too, which could be challenging to players sometimes, but if there was a reduction in the extra bonus dmg that enemies have in quests that might balacing things out. A different approach might be a gearing solution, update the engineering accessory items to have Area Dmg and Building bonus dmg along with current stats. Would need to think how gear like that would impact Palintonons though. Could also be put into Titus advisor effects.

Anyways, just food for thought in case rams and other pve units are reviewed.



Rams
Gear:
Ram head of Khnum,
Breastplate of Alexander or Tryphon's Reinforced Sidings (you need dmg but can't ignore health).
Divine Heavy Cedar Beams(need dmg but can't ignore health), a Movespeed+dmg or a movespeed+health item would be lovely for Engineering Accessory slot btw.
Babylonian Siege tower - Ashurs Arrows
Advisor: A3 Titus - 20% health and move speed
Milestones: Persian Seasoned Crew 8% move speed

Rams
https://unitstats.projectceleste.com/?build=e07bee567ff379a00d584fc040d9a9bdce9f5cfa616203925260ad0c

Alternative units https://unitstats.projectceleste.com/?build=1ff709d1b1fe3256e2c64816086f339811b6fa1ad744e33275bf39c1


Norse: Farbjodr
- 316 dps vs buildings (158 per pop)
- 6.5 move speed
- 10s train time
- 207 cost, 2 pop (104 per pop)
Berserker:
- 212 dps vs buildings (106 per pop)
Splash Area 2 means big increase to effective building dmg against walls


Celts Ram
- 305 dps vs buildings (152 per pop)
- 7.8 move speed
- 9 train time
- 207 cost, 2 pop (104 per pop)
Woad Raiders: 222 dps vs buildings (222 per pop)
- Area dmg with charge can add a little vs buildings sometimes


Roman Ram
- 480 dps vs buildings (160 per pop)
- 6.4 move speed
- 22s train time
- 330 cost, 3 pop (110 per pop)
Centurion: 382 dps vs buildings (382 per pop)
Onager: 336 dps vs buildings (84 per pop) Splash area 3 for vs walls

Greek Ram
- 685 dps vs buildings (228 per pop)
- 5.8 move speed
- 22s train time
- 401 cost, 3 pop (134 per pop)
Ballista: 401 dps vs buildings (100 per pop), Splash area 4 for vs walls

Persian Ram
- 575 dps vs buildings (192 per pop)
- 6.7 move speed
- 22s train time
- 401 cost, 3 pop (134 per pop)
Immortals: 159 dps vs buildings (159 per pop)

Egypt Siege Tower
- 575 dps vs buildings (144 per pop)
- 5.8 move speed
- 31s train time
- 572 cost, 4 pop (143 per pop)
War Elephant: 278 dps vs buildings (70 per pop)
Splash Area 3 means big increase to effective building dmg against walls
Catapult: 510 dps vs buildings (102 per pop) Splash area 3 for vs walls

Babylonian Siege Tower
- 510 dps vs buildings (102 per pop)
- 6.4 move speed
- 35s train time
- 487 cost, 53 pop
Sapper: 418 dps vs buildings (418 per pop)
 
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Some comments above on cost, train time decrease for rams. Those are two factors that aren't hugely important in pve, by themselves it wouldn't be a reason to use rams except for the occasional situation. If you are massing your army then a little bit of cost or time isn't important. If you are pushing through the map then quicker/cheaper replacement is nice, as rams will die on the way, but move speed means it only helps if you are rebuilding production along the way and rams aren't effective enough to justify the management overhead of building different production buildings and moving rams etc.

So cost/train time could be helpful, but really population is the only limit you have and you have to decide to give 8-10 pop to Rams or to your high dps do everything unit or ranged siege if your civ has catapults, and Rams just aren't effective enough.

Note: I like to use rams anyways on my Romans, whenever a quest does not have too many wall or overlooking cliffs, its not the most effective strategy but its fun and feels appropriate for a mixed army, calling up the rams to take down walls, breaking into fortresses and dropping guard towers, while other units fight and burn down production buildings, etc. Just wish the effectiveness matched the concept.

EDIT: I've come around more to the quicker early rams idea. The early attack use could be interesting, maybe even more so than just making rams more effective. It would add some dynamic to pve, really inviting more average players to try early attacks with a few rams and small number of units, which normally is just done by the very top fast players. I think the rams would still need a bit more effectiveness against walls and would need to consider the upfront cost of the fortress for norse/celts/india when judging their ram costs.
 
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@Aryzel the splash damage on Babylonian Siege Tower applies only to their garrisoned range attack.

Microing the charge attacks from Legion/Woad/Lancers requires precise timing - You have to alter their attack course from a unit to a building during their charge, often nearly at the end

I would suggest including Amytis for the Babylonian Siege Tower, as well as use Arrows of the Moon - They are superior to the summer arrows on the Siege Tower.

For the alternative unit, are you comparing them to popular builds? For Greek and Rome, I would suggest using the Ballista/Onager as a comparison. For Babylon, I would suggest using Sappers as the comparison.

The cost/train time suggestion cam about from discussing on where to improve Rams without directly buffing them for the AI - Cost and Train Time are both fairly irrelevant to the AI, along with Population. My suggestion was a 50% cost and train time reduction to allow for extremely early Ram strikes before the AI has had a chance to mass their army, but other posters felt that a 30%/30% reduction to cost/train time would suffice.
 
@frogs.poison Updated the list a bit, included the moving ranged siege for Egypt,Greeks,Romans, and sappers/arrows for babylon. Removed lancers and reworded what i said on woad raiders

I can see why cost/train time were suggested, but just don't think players would use them for that reason outside of a few top players who push early, vast majority of players get their army together before pushing at all. And remember celts/norse need to drop a fortress first too, there is still a large upfront cost.
 
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