Honestly, short of a complete rework i dont see much that you can do to see longswords see more use.
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What about changing the gold to food ratio so the swordsman line initially costs more gold and less food? This would make it easier to produce them earlier in the game. Then have supplies or a new tech change the cost to be more food heavy for late game. Just a random thought I had.
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Bad eco efficiency is not the only reason. All those civs have better options.
I didnât run the math. So correct me if I am wrong. LS with 2MA will be a cost effective trade against knight for a lot of civs. And I donât want it.
I want to see militia line more as well. But I donât think you should make castle age full LS play a thing just like full xbow/knight/eagle/CA/Camel play. They are not designed to be a full Castle age play unit unless you are facing full eagle.
I want to keep that +1MA in a new Barracks tech. In fact, you said this in a different thread so that we can choose and pick.
I believe so. Iâd suggest replace it with âArsonâ tech.
Very nicely described.
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Like for sure this could work as well, but itâs easier to change the stats on a unit then it I to convince Devs (and the population accept a new tech for reasons)
Tbf this was the same thread asking for things from HC attack speed techs to tower tech to castles getting scorpions, so I donât think itâs necessarily a benchmark, regardless of how much some of us might want some of that stuff
This is true, but the economy to sustain that is more expensive to set up than the knight eco, neither does it have the flexibility that knights do. As in if you face a losing fight with LS, you lose your units, knights if you face a losing fight, you can withdraw and attack somewhere else. No way LS are running away from a losing fight against Knights.
LS canât dive TCs, they canât rush up and kill monks trying to convert siege, LS canât split into multiple groups and ravage your base very easily (explained below) knights can still do all of this. Itâs the same problem why pikes are generally such a bad unit, because they only counter knights when they stick together, while being considerably slower, making it possible for knights to actually counter pike players by simply splitting up
Because one knight by itself is still a massive threat to an eco multiply that by 10 knights spread all over the place.
Nobody cares about 10 LS spread around, theyâll all die fairly easily. to even a few xbows. Or even a few knights. One at a time.
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Agree with everything but
Make 20 LS of it and itâs a problem. I mean thatâs literally how infantry floods work. The issue is usually more getting into the eco than what happens once you are actually in.
When you have enough of them they can. But itâs kinda uncommon agree.
I see LS also more of an strategical play. You can use them to force your opponents to actually make some gold units. But with the established meta we currently have this is most of the time not even necessary. We see Gold units being made all the time, and be it just the meta knight rush.
i think just giving LS 1 more melee armor is super fine. We already have Teutons and rarely see them making LS despite they already have that extra melee armor.
How much more LS play in Castle age you want to see? Forcing a knight player to tech into archer? In that case shouldnât buffing pikemans resistant to arrow make more sense? Long time ago I asked to remove skirmishers +3 attack bonus vs spearman until Imperial age.
Edit: I think spearman and skirmishers are being too weak outside of their specialty is another reason behind not enough LS play. Also both of the units are often considered not as effective counter as it should be. Skirmisher is widely known as a poor counter to archer in Imperial age. Even in Castle age, Elite Skirm upgrade cost has been changed 2 times which is the highest among all generic units. And still ended up with a xbow upgrade cost nerf. And now buffing castle age pikeman is a very common discussion.
You have a point. But are you sure Malians LS with Celts wonât be OP?
I also had that thought for sometime. But then early game will be even more boring as there will be no DRUSH or M@rush opening. You have to increase starting gold cost to make those rush affordable. But then people will just go straight FC and go xbow/knight. So we then have to change Castle age cost as well.
I think it is equally difficult to convince devs to give a generic unit 2 base MA that used to have 0 MA up until 1 year ago and add a tech to give the MA.
I always want to stay safe when it comes to balance. Maybe thatâs just me.
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I would go:
-
militia Speed upped from 0.9 to 0.96, same as archers. (Same tratment for all similar UU with 0.9 Speed or so)
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new scout class and same bonus for Eagles against scout line, maybe starting from LS or by giving scout resistance to MAA bonus in feudal
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make THS and Champion upgrade about 25% cheaper, and faster
This would be a start to make a decent unit for its supposed role and a bit of extra speed for general utility
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I just wanted to also talk about camels.
I think that the high speed of camels is probably the thing that causes the biggest issues in 1v1.
In TGs itâs only the top camels (yeah you, hindustani imp camels) with their high health pool and damage output vs cav that pose a problem. So if we would just specifically nerf them a bit we should not get into problems with the tweak i wanna propose.
Camels lose .15 Speed so they are slower than heavy cav (1.3 v 1.35). In the exchange they get +1 Pierce Armor.
Also for the Heavy Camel, they could get +1 or + 2 more base attack but way less bonus damage vs cavalry. Like 8 base and +14 vs cav or 9 base and +10 vs Cav. Potentially getting some bonus v Eles also. Itâs a minor tweak, but I think the extremely high bonus damage of heavy camels is one of the main reasons why they can be so impactful in TGs. Especially the hindustani super camels.
Iâve looked into a lot of old combats and there is absolutely no indicator for Camels being faster than Cavalry. In many cases camels were actually only used to supply the troops and bring the fighters in the battle, not as an actual mount.
So I think this could be a good tradeoff for the camels. They donât counter knights in every aspect anymore, but with the extra pierce armor they become a bit more resistant to archer and TC fire.
I think this would make camels way more rounded unit and less abnoxious against knights.
I wish they stayed generic. And Hindustanis got Cavalier and/or SL to play in Castle Age.
On your suggestion - Making Camel universally a generalist unit is not a good idea. Also Camel being faster than knight and other heavy cavalry is one of if not the biggest advantage over pikeman. Removing that doesnât make sense to me.
The problem with that is that knights and archers are the 2 power unit lines. Basically every civ is either an archer or knight civ and designed to make use of the knight or xbow powerspike in the midgame.
And camels basically completely shut down knights in early castle age.
Yes you can add monks or pikes, but the utility of the powerspike is gone. Also if you are cought you canât even retreat because of the speed disadvantage.
I donât want to take away the speed completely from camels, just so they canât decimate retreating knights anymore. With 1.3 speed the camels are still fast enough to track behind the knights so the knights canât just run to the next raiding ground. The knights would need to retreat for once, but they can because they are then actually faster than the camels that force them away.
Reducing THS upgrade cost by 25% means it will cost almost same as LS upgrade. Agree with time and Champion.
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I would name this armor class âlight armourâ.
Some units with this new light armor class could be: Eagles, Pikes, Skirms, Light Cav, Vils (after loom), archer-line, CAs (HCA gain little positive light armor).
All archer type UU, but:
Genose Crossbow gain positive light armor after pavese, enough to deny the bonus.
Non-Elite Janissary and Slinger have little positive light armor. Elite version add more light armor, enough to deny the bonus.
Non-Elite Mangudai and Camel archer have light armor class. Elite version gain little positive light armor after pavese.
War wagon, Conquistador and Ratha donât have light armor class
Some others UU with light armour could be: Karambit, Shotelai, Gbeto, WoadRider, Urumi, Chakram, Ghulam, Shrivamsha, Tarkan.
Tbf atm longsword upgrade gives more than THS upgrade over the previous variant for less cost (+3 Attack, more bonus Attack, more armor, more HP) so It make sense to be closer in cost. It obviously needs to be a bit higher for consistency but does not need to be that higher either
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True. I think THS can get +10HP actually instead of a cost reduction. Time needs to be decreased though. And Champion upgrade should be more exclusive just like Paladin upgrade.
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tbf paladin is the strongest unit in the game, it is exclusive for that reason. champion is nowhere near that power. it would be good to have a unique tech for militia that makes infantry better, like bloodlines for cavalry, and that could be made more exclusive
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Not as rare as Paladin. But not so much common as it is now either. And if THS get a HP buff, Champion will also get some.
I think you tried to mean Generic tech. We already have one. It is called âArsonâ for infantry. And for militia line specific, we have âSuppliesâ.
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I know what the generic techs areâŠwe could Just get more.
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On top of the potential LS line buffs.( Whatever they end up being) Whether thatâs:
- 2HS + champ tech discounts.
- tech that adds +1/1 armour to the line.
- straight buff to LS stats (+0.05 speed / +1 MA)
If the line does get the change to do bonus damage to scouts as well (changing eagle class to scout class and adding it to scout line with bonus resistance)
What about if the ghulam gets added to the scout class. So archer civs have a better direct counter to ghulam. Currently it seems ghulam are going to get nerfed, but at the same time I donât think they should be nerfed too much, and rather make more room for the counters.
Over nerfing ghulam will simply allow Mayans to continue creating monoblob xbows, whereas keepin ghulam strong enough, forces Mayans to transition into a counter (LS line would be more effective Vs ghulam than they are Vs eagles, due to worse stats on ghulam)
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I think âlight armorâ has more potential. More units could have it and others could have bonus vs it
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Yeah that makes more sense. Only thing I was concerned about was something like skirmisher or xbow technically being light units. But would they have light armour class? Donât think it matters really what the name is,but light armour does sound better
Could certainly help with some granularity and advantages to units