Hello,
I have noticed that gaul hammers, especially after the implementation of horse drinking through, are quite weak. Siege is ok balanced because the trebuchet is still quite good, even if expensive (particulary in a WW hammer cost shouldn't be an issue). And siege is optional imo, some people just want to have some fun attacking around, not train a WWK.
The problem lies within their heavy cavalry, haeduans, in my oppinion. (If you want to skip my description of haeduans, just go to the red text paragraph)
They are a great unit by itself, but you don't actually get to use them in both of the fields they excel. As defenders against cavalry, they are good but you will rarely see them because of the huge cost. You can get the same amount of anti cav deff points by building a few phalanx, much cheaper. Of course there is the situational case when an ally needs fast help, but let's be honest: how many times they've asked for anti-cav defense? A few spears from a close teuton can do that job much better, even phalanx. I rarely see that happening.
When we take a look at haeduan, it is not:
-spammable. It's very expensive and doesn't train fast either.
- It has the worst attack per crop of all heavy cavalry (considering romans have HDT). Defense per crop is decent, but as I stated earlier, people don't usually build them for defence because of the enourmous costs and even better alternatives (spears win on efficiency).
- They are good in the gaul hammer because they make it nearly immune to ghosting.
- Their speed is ok. Can raid a bit, though vastly overshadowed by TT.
What we end up with is a mediocre unit like the lego, good-at-all but not the best at anything. Well, they are the best gauls have. But here lies the problem. The other heavy cavalry are just way superior.
Some would say versatility is also a factor, but I wouldn't agree. Lego is the most balanced unit in the game, it has both attack and defense in roughly equal amounts, yet almost no one builds it because most people can gather spears or phalanx from other people and do a much better job. Or train imperians and again do a much better job.
Ideas to fix the Haeduans:
1. Give them +5 attack. Maybe even +10, and they would still be behind the teutonic knight in terms of offense/day. this would only benefit hammer builders and nothing else
2. Reduce their training time by a little. this would also only benefit hammer builders, but a larger amount of haeds means also a possible bigger moving defence, if the hammer builder chooses to send them as defense.
3. Make them cheaper. This would allow them to be built more often as defenders, thus making that nice anti-cav deff useful. (and please don't reduce only the wheat cost, we can't all afford to NPC in 3 villages every day :D) This would benefit both attack use and defense use of haeduans. Cheaper means they can be trained earlier in your hammer village. It also means they would become a somewhat viable to be trained defensive unit. It would also make the game a little more fun, who doesn't like to build badass heavy cavalry? If they are cheaper, (noobs like me)/people can train them more often.
Number 1 and 2 should do a pretty good job in closing the gap between gaul hammers and others, while number 3 would make them use their defensive role more often.
Please tell me what do you think about it.