First, in general I really like the Champi concept, I think it’s a way better one than the Eagles.
Some time ago I made a topic that I wish for a new regional scout unit for the south american civs and I am very, very happy with the Champi concept.
But it needs some tweaking. Generally the Champi are a bit OP, but that’s something that can be easily adjusted with a patch in the future. And that’s not what I want to talk about too much, because it should be very obvious by now and surely recognized by players and developers.
The Issue I see is with the Champi powerspikes. And ofc mostly so ofc with the opener in Dark Age. Currentliy there is really no counter to that. You can wall and make Archers, but it’s hard to be protected at all angles and you lose the game when they break through at a single spot. Really tough, not impossible, but or 99 % of players practically unachievable. And you might in the following even run into a FC behind it if you are too cautious and miss the timing for a counterattack.
I also watched Phosphoru who says he wants the new civs to train militia in Dark Age who then would be upgraded to Champi in Feudal. Which could solve the issue, but take away the flair of the new civs.
I would like to go another path. I would like Champi to become “Shock Infantry”. And that the early versions of the militia line get a bit more Bonus Damage against them. Possibly 2-3 for Militia and the MAA could get up to + 4. This would ofc also affect eagles, which could then be trained a bit faster in Feudal (maybe 45 s istead of 50).
This is also referring to the issue that we currently not really have a clear concept of “what is a shock infantry” and what not. In my opinion from the perspective of “easy balancing” of the game it would make sense to make all “fast, high pierce armor” Infatnry Shock Infantry. Because they are so dangerous to all Range focussed civs, they need a way to counter them - and they then could opt for the militia line which most of them have actually a solid one of. Exception would only be the Huskarl, also because he is comparably slow and there are traditionally established Strats against Goths that work for ranged focussed civs. It’s a known feature of the game, and as unique and potentially as it is - actually still balanced. Mainly because the community figured out these strats over years of experience - unfortunately newer civs can’t be learned like this, they need to function and fit in from the getgo, so these kinds of units NEED clear and for casuals instinctively executable counter strats/units.
PS: I also think the Slingers could actually gain back 1 or 2 of their anti-infantry bonus damage they lost with the DLC. So this would compensate a bit of the nerf for Champi when they would get the Shock Infantry armor class.
Trained Champi Scout speed reduced from 1.10 → 0.90 (Starting scout is unchanged)
Reducing PA by 1 and then adding Gambeson is also necessary for Feudal.
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I don’t think so, I think being countered by the Militia line is actually required, as the unit is so much better against the range units than cavalry.
If you reduce the pierce armor they will be almost unusable in feudal with the low HP, archers would just kill them.
And I don’t think it’s a good construct to have 2 different versions of the same unit in the game, depending on if you start with it or you train it, it’s just confuising. Then I would actually prefer if you would just train Miliitia in Dark Age.
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By checking the possible Builds for the Champi Rush I also think that we won’t get around reducing the training time as the civs have so meaningful dark age bonusses currently. They just come out too fast to respond well - even if there was a counter you often will be already behind before actually having the chance to go for it.
In general we had before the DLC the tendency to reduce Dark Age Bonusses for this reason, so I think it has to be either reducing the training time or taking away at least parts of the dark age bonusses of these civs.
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New Champi counter that I came up with: as soon as you see they’re going champi rush, say “gg gl next” then resign. Perfect way of dealing with the unit.
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There would also be an option to introduce a new “scout unit” armor class. That would apply to Scout Cav, Eagles, Champi and the Camel Sout.
Then give Champi something like 2 Bonus Damage against that and reduce their HP, especially in the early game, as compensation.
(This would also open possibilities in future patches to give certain units like the Spearmen (possibly through a tech) Bonus Damage against scout units - and therefore enabling more diverse gameplay in matchups with the American civs. Aswell reacting to the development that practically in the current meta spearmen just don’t do their job anymore - and we prefer to wall instead, as the better way to deal with scout rushes.
It’s really unfortunate that this cheese is now going on, because I personally like the DLC in general. The Civs have clear weaknesses and Strengths, but maybe that’s also refreshing to see after in the last DLCs we had so many civs that didn’t really have weaknesses or if they had, they got immediately fixed (eg Bengalis vs Skirms and Dravidians vs SIege/BBC). They definitely feel in this aspect more like “old” civs which also have these design “flaws”.
Could nerf Champi Scout (the dark age version) by reducing its pierce armor by 1 (so that if you stay in dark age, Feudal Age archers can more easily kill them), reduce movement speed from 1.1 to 1.05 (just a bit, makes it a little bit harder to run from Militia as well as catch up to villagers), and increase production time (from 21 to about 32 seconds). I think three relatively small changes like that could make it balanced.
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