About the new Militia-line & the new Serjeant:
Is Militia rush and Man-at-Arms rush any good for Sicilians? Can Longswordsman be utilized in any Castle age strategy? And what about Two-Handed Swordsman and Champion? Everything with also the Serjeant in mind.
Long story short:
Also, Spirit of the Law mentions Sicilians, as a civ among the bigger losers of the latest balance update, based on data.
The problem of the Sicilians is strategic. Their economic bonus takes a long time to pay off, and above all you have to research Horse Collar first.
However, if you open MaA / Serjeants 95% of the time you continue archers, and skip Horse Collar. You search it after you have clicked Castle Age, putting off even longer the moment when your economic bonus will kick in. Until the devs fix this, Sicilians will have problems. Then also the late game should be improved, giving Thumb Ring or reworking Hauberk would be steps in the right direction.
I prefer to rework like as following due to Savar
(1) New Hauberk effect: all infantry +1/+2 armor, available in Castle age. First Crusade becomes imperial tech.
(2) Revert bonus damage resistance from 33% to 50%
So… I guess Sicilian Champion is a meme.
Yes, they are not special in practice.
Actually, one more thing more bewildering is that Sicilians would get nerf whenever Devs tried to fix it.
I unironically love this tech but I understand it makes no sense in aoe2.
I hate this bonus so much, it mainly affects their cavalry turning them into a boring cav civ and softens the pikeman hard counter. Isnt there another way to buff them?
This tech offers quite good potential if you plan to use it when maxed out in population, so as an imperial age UT synergizes well.
Cavalry is the most benefited indeed, because it has the biggest health pool, but… at 50% will also be impactful for every other unit that has counters; Sicilian Archer-line vs Skirms, Sicilian Spearman-line vs Skirms & Archers, Sicilian Skirmishers vs Skirmishers. This is not insignificant.
Infantry is not greatly benefited, this is true.
I would argue that devs should make it vary between each unit, so to have Xbow resist 2 more hits and Knight a similar number of hits instead of multiple times more than 2… perhaps.
They are only a cavalry civ when facing non-cav civ. This bonus is only annoying when combining with Hauberk. Now, we have Savar. I don’t think we need Hauberk honestly. At least, bonus dmg resistance helps scout rush.
I keep trying to make it work by going fast castle and quickly placing five Town Centers 11
The tech works very well when you have a defensive style, and you need it to regain map control. It is much less risky to do UT, then go Imperial, than the other way around.
Edit. The problem is when you play against civilisations like Persians, who outboom you and have a better late game.
Before you age up to Imperial age?
Yes, also because the tech is currently not very fast to research.
My own personal thought: revert foot soldiers to 50% bonus damage resistance, and leave cavalry at 33%. This would keep their cavalry from being overpowered (as they would not be buffed), but archers (which tend to take less bonus damage than cavalry) would be notably better. Infantry would also be better, but they tend to take even less damage than archers (unless you’re talking spear-line, which takes at most 4 anti-spear bonus damage/shot)
Alternatively, give Sicilians BBC - this would make it easier to protect their donjons, allowing them to play as an effective defensive civilization. Downside is that it isn’t historically accurate. Upside is that it would cement them as a solid defensive civilization (defensive gameplay generally doesn’t get great winrates due to being more difficult to pull off).
At least let scout line have 50%?
