Solution to Two-Castle Arambai on Arena

I know there are a ton of posts about this on both aoezone and reddit, be they rants about how OP two castle arambai is, how to fix it by nerfing arambai, or people who abuse the arambai mechanic and deny its OPness. Skip to the dashed line if you don't want to read me explaining why its OP and why other nerfs aren't great ideas.

To the players who consistently deny how oppressive two castle arambai is: lmao. It's a near-broken strat on 1v1s, completely OP on team games on Arena and part of the reason I don't play Arena anymore. I know the strat has its counters. "mass xbows, pikes and scorpions, defensive castle." Yes. Those are all valid points and counters. The issue is every single teammate on your team has to invest in those counters because one opponent is burmese and is going two castle arambai. Arambai are super fast, and the minute the burmese player notices one opponent has skirms or enough xbow numbers, they can go and hit another opponent. That one burmese player can set behind every opponent on the other team, and the Burmese player's teammates can practically full boom in Castle age. On 1v1s, I agree, it has its counters and is not broken if you prepare for it. On teamgames, this is unfair.

To the players who propose various nerfs to the arambai to make the strat more oppressive (make arambai more expensive, decrease their damage output, nerf Burmese elsewhere, etc...): that might solve arambai OPness on arena in team games, but it makes them nearly useless in other settings. Burmese don't need further nerfs on Arabia or Nomad or other maps, they're a pretty well-rounded, middle-of-the-road civ for the most part. A nerf to Arambai in general therefore makes no sense.

I think I have a good compromise that will not ruin Arambai on other maps and settings but will make their boring two castle arambai play significantly more futile on arena: increase stone building pierce armour.

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One reason the strat is so successful is how easily arambai can break into a fully-stone walled base and take down tcs, guard towers, etc... A single arambai does 17 (SEVENTEEN) damage. This is supposedly balanced by their horrible accuracy when fighting units, but against buildings they do their full 17 damage per shot. A stone wall has 10 pierce armour. That's enough for crossbowman, most castle-age unique units, scorpions, and pretty much every pierce-damage unit to only deal 1-2 damage against them. The only land units that deal more than 2 base pierce damage against stone walls are conquistadors (6 attack), janissaries and hand cannons (7 attack), organ guns (6 attack), and arambai (7 attack). Every other pierce-damage land unit deals less than 2 base attack against stone walls and gates. If we increase the pierce armour of stone buildings such that arambai do the same 1-2 damage against them as other ranged pierce units, it will be significantly more difficult for those arambai to break into an opponent's base without some siege or a forward castle to back it up. That gives you and any ally the arambai go to if you already have made preparations some extra time to prepare, and not make them so oppressive on team games.

"But OP" you say, "wouldn't this make stone buildings overpowered in other situations and contexts?" Well, no. Apart from the land pierce armour units mentioned above, all other pierce armour units still only do 1 damage, regardless of if the stone building has 10 or 17 pierce armour. Bonus damage, as is the case with the saracen bonus or Mayan obsidian arrows, ignores a building's pierce armour. Therefore, increasing stone building pierce armour will not change how much damage most other pierce armour units do against them. The only thing that will change is how arambai, and the aforementioned units (conqs, organs, janis, and hand cannons) perform. They will do less damage to stone buildings.

"But OP" you say again, "wouldn't this nerf the four other units you mentioned earlier? conqs organs janis and hand cannons?" It will. I don't think that's a big issue, since I haven't really seen those units be abused like the arambai is for breaking into a base on arena, but if it ends up being a significant nerf, there's a solution to that: increased gunpowder unit bonus damage to stone buildings. gunpowder units are conqs, organs, janis, hand cannons, bombard cannons, and cannon galleons. Cannon Galleons and bombard cannons already get massive bonus damage against buildings, so a +6 or +7 gunpowder bonus damage against specifically stone buildings will be a very small, negligible buff for them that shouldn't matter in practice. The only gunpowder units that remain are conqs, organs, janis, and hand cannons. If we increase stone building pierce armour to 16 or 17, and give gunpowder unit bonus damage against stone buildings, literally the only thing that will change is how long it will take for arambai to break into a stone-walled base.

Archers and archer unique units will still do only 1 damage against stone walls, gunpowder unique units with the proposed +6/+7 bonus damage will still do +6 or +7 damage against stone walls, saracen archers will still do +3 damage against stone walls, Mayan archers will still do +6 (I think) damage versus walls, but Arambai will only deal 1 damage per shot.

Most importantly, Arambai will be unchanged on other maps and on different settings. Burmese will not be nerfed elsewhere, the specific two-castle arambai strat on arena will be dealt with, and everyone except two-castle arambai dipsh\ts on arena will be happy\.*

Let me know if I've made an oversight or absolutely ruined a separate very niche strategy with this proposed change.

TL;DR: give stone buildings (specifically: stone walls) 16 or 17 pierce armour instead of the current 10. Give gunpowder (specifically: conqs, organ guns, janis, and hand cannons) units +6 or +7 attack bonus against stone walls. Archer and gunpowder unit DPS against stone walls will remain unchanged, but Arambai will find it significantly more time-consuming and difficult to take them down.