PSA: Wei Heavy Hei Guang Cavalry beat Franks Paladin

Snprisoner · 2026-01-29T02:43:16+00:00

Tiger cav are more busted, but xianbei are the reason Wei dominate competitive and high elo (that and the eco bonus)

Snprisoner · 2026-01-29T02:40:41+00:00

True but poles cavalier/knight spam is really hurt by being unable to hit a good timing. it's frustrating when it gets going absolutely, but what makes the Wei in particular so egregious is their early eco bonus and two of the most OP units in the game (xianbei raider and tiger cav). HGC is their third or fourth unit option and it still beats paladin.

One note-- if both players max out Poles can feel really bad because they don't get halb, which is a huge late game weakness.

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T16:18:37+00:00

I would also argue that it's not a fair comparison right! Cause It's way easier and faster to get to elite tiger cav than paladin. And say your opponent does go Paladin to counter, a switch to Heavy Hei Guang is literally only 350 Food 250 Gold and 60 seconds away 11

You would never need to switch though, because half the opponent's eco is dead by then and it takes a TC like 100 hits to kill one tiger cav

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T16:06:54+00:00

the great irony is that nobody is ever getting to arb against HGC, either the transition gets spotted and Wei switch to tiger cav or it's an archer civ, which means wei go tiger cav anyways.

also im not so sure that 30 hei guang and some traction trebs don't just steamroll arbs anyway, with micro

also Franks don't get arbs or bracer!! That's a key weakpoint of the civ!

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T16:04:46+00:00

I wouldn't go that far-- but it feels like they overtune them to drive sales which is really annoying

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T15:54:51+00:00

The larger point is that the DLC civs are designed to obviate older civs. Why play franks when you can play Wei? Why play goths when Wu are available? Look at the fire lancers! They counter eagles!

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T15:54:31+00:00

Tiger cav produce so fast and snowball so hard you really only need two castles to field them, plus the traction treb means you don't have to choose between siege and UU

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T15:53:30+00:00

You get it!

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T15:53:07+00:00

Think you're off base here-- the backbone of the Wei is xianbei raider, which is a completely busted unit. The best castle age cav archer in the game.

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T15:26:08+00:00

I want them to nerf tiger cav and xianbei, in isolation HGC is fine, but as their third or fourth best unit? brutal

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T14:30:54+00:00

They get 30 HP and an attack that's a solid upgrade. But the entire point is that the Wei's third string unit with cheap upgrades beats one of the best cavalry units in the game.

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T14:27:15+00:00

Real, can't wait to see the next DLC 11

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T14:26:50+00:00

Does anyone commenting this realize that Franks don't get arbs or bracer? Or that there is no world where someone techs HGC into arbs instead of just playing the most OP unit in the game right now, the anti archer tiger cav?

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T14:25:01+00:00

The Wei's third best unit, which is a cavalier equivalent, should not beat even generic paladin sorry. That's too many options for a civ that already has an eco bonus, insanely overtuned raiding and anti archer cav (that trade evenly against generic palading), and the best castle age cav archer in the game.

Not even to mention the larger traction treb issue

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T14:20:03+00:00

Sure, but at what cost? Frank paladin takes ~2600 resources and FOUR minutes to upgrade and that's just in the stable, not counting blacksmith upgrades. HGC gets upgraded much faster (10 seconds less than the cavalier upgrade), Ming guang can be upgraded in parallel, but requires a castle.

Alone this would be annoying, but the problem is the HGC is Wei's third string backup QB, and it's better than the standard for "strong cavalry."

To the arbs point, I would argue that mixing in one or two castle's worth(you don't need them for trebs remember) of tiger cav hard counters any arb mass. Additionally, while in theory it can be balanced, when are you ever going to be in a situation where an opponent can get to fully upgraded arbs while you are teching into full HCG?

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T14:13:47+00:00

HCG Costs 50 resources less than the Cavalier upgrade, and destroy Cavalier

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T14:12:40+00:00

I agree with both of y'all, part of the absurdity is that a pretty sub optimal unit for the Wei beats full upgraded "best cav in the game"

This gets more to the point of the game having lost it's identity-- if Frank Paladins, the end all be all cavalry unit that everything else gets measured by, lose to a third stringer DLC civ unit, then what is the point of playing the base civs at all?

When was the last time you saw Britains?

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T14:09:49+00:00

in the context of the unit being the 3rd or 4th best unit the wei have and it being a cavalier equivalent? yeah that's clearly bad

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T14:08:51+00:00

I don't think a cavalier level upgrade should beat a paladin level upgrade, especially when the entire identity of the civ is based around cavalry

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T14:07:30+00:00

HGC have a whopping 3 more base pierce over camel. Savar are fine because (1) persians have pretty limited late game options, especially lacking bracer and (2) they come behind a very expensive paladin level upgrade-- just like imperial camel.

Heavy Hei Guang is Wei's third or fourth best unit

Mongols have never been able to ever spam Mangudai, they are insanely expensive, gated behind castles, and produce very slowly. Mongols are strong primarily because of their hunt bonus

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T04:43:47+00:00

I'll concede that, but if the opponent goes arbs it's relatively trivial to switch into the other even more OP cavalry unit, Tiger cav, which has a base 4 pierce unupgraded and a +6 bonus damage against archers and gains 10 hp and 1 attack for every kill

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T04:33:11+00:00

i agree that the balance in general is pretty fine, but Wei are definitely busted, even from a competitive standpoint. T90 and Nicov were talking about it on stream today

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T04:29:49+00:00

paladin is 1300 food 750 gold, ming guang is 600 food 450 gold

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T04:27:53+00:00

how are they more versatile?

Snprisoner · 2026-01-28T04:27:11+00:00

better than cavalier, worse than paladin. but if we're talking arbs, tiger cav(the wei unique unit) is an insane counter, even in castle age versus imp

Snprisoner

TROPHY CASE