Compared to doppelsoldners, they have 1 less area of effect, the ability to absorb nearby attacks by 25% (damage is still dealt to them), passive regeneration, and cost 20 more food but 20 less gold. Although the ability to absorb nearby attacks sounds good on paper, artillery is still lethal, and an army of hospitallers can be lackluster. Maybe they could have 5% of the absorption ability exchanged for 5% total damage negation. If this is too powerful early on, it could be included in home city card. Also, WHY DO THEY SPEAK GERMAN?!
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Not to mention they have 45 base siege versus doppels 60 base siege. They “move faster near buildings” which is a nice however they still underperform compared to dopps in the end. I think their age 4 card needs to also increase their speed, attack, and HP by 5% and then they’ll feel worth it. This way they still won’t be powerhouses like dopps but get better use late-game.
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But they do benefit from the 2% hp per card bonus and the regeneration.
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Actually they are better than doppels for multiple reasons:
A: they are cheaper ressource wise. Which for the “big” infantry is a massive boon.
B: The 2% buff ammounts exceedingly fast 1.5 HP cards for no actual card cost slot or shipment for it.
C: Speed is more relevant to a melee unit next to HP and they allready have 10 HP baseline over the doppel first only in defense later on however also in offence, NVM that commandries also can ship them around on top of that.
D: Their job is to protect arbalesters whilest still doing decent siege and anti cav work.
E: They have significantly advantagous card support with added resistances including to skirms which are half their hardcounters and an cooldown ability which can significantly increase their damage short term and with range ontop of it.
F: The 25 % absorbtion is a massive boon in a mixed force of infantry and allows you specifically to keep Firethrowers and arbalesters on the field far longer than they have any right to be.
Overall they are what the Doppel wishes to be, that is to say the doppel has the stats for the cost but is in itself due to lower speed far more limited in application as a melee unit, has no protective ability to lessen micro intensity to protect skirms easier and later on will get outdone statwise because 2% boni.
Also the doppel kind of get’s replaced due to the easier availability for its job with ulans turning their one use into basically a siege unit akin to a worse grenadier.
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dopps seem better because their shipments synergize better (malta already has a bunch of pike and sentinel shipments to cover anti cav) with germany and the scaling of dopps is more evident when your civ has a very good late late game eco; Malta’s falls off and therefore expensive coin units tend to be a premium. If you swapped these units between civs you’d say dopps were up and hospitaliers the prime example.
fwiw the various “knights of x” pops and generally just having 5 to boost the hp of a pike/bow ball is nice, they are also your best bet vs cuir late game.
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Exactly, well said. That being said hospitallers only need a small buff, much like the other aspects of Malta. I suggested the late-game buff of adding to the Age 4 card: 5% attack, HP, and speed to Hospitallers.
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I wonder if just making maltese church card not…aggreisvely niche would be enough. the 10% aura plus 5% on top of drummers from AA is probably close to the point where they are nasty. Maybe even adding 5% speed or even 10% to the tophat dignitaries w/e named card? Not more deck space is needed to maximize them this way. even fully speedy dopps arent really OP. but speed would help vs the heavy cav weakness of malta in various late game scenarios, and also, running full tilt with knights and maybe even wwinning is super fun.
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hospis are pretty ok for what they are, but like all melee infantry that cost 200 res and take 2 pop there’s pretty much always better options.
Agreed. Hospitallers may be faster near buildings, but it’s not a very noticeable advantage, and if you research Teutonic Knights, it worsens their speed (which I’m not a fan of. I’d rather have faster units than stronger ones).
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One could also lower the speed debuff by a bit but then again the same can be said about the Doppel card.
Especially since both are melee units and kinda need speed more than pure stats… but then again maybee it is a good thing, because imperial stats Hospitaliters with some cards sent are horrifying even without the teutonic upgrade.
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I used to use hospitallers but after playing a few games, I realized how weak they are. I’ve played games where I made only hospitallers (I had a great eco and was able to really pump them) and it was to no avail. We didn’t win until I switched to superior units like the fire thrower. The hospitallers just don’t do enough damage to even be considered a threat beyond the early game. Muskets are more effective.
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Again, their job is NOT to be a solo composition, their job is to keep firethrowers and arbalesters in the field, or even pikemen. They are not a solo comp unit.
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I don’t bother with crossbows most of the time, since they take a lot of cards and seem to be outranged by musks somehow. But yes, I do think Hospitallers are supposed to be in mixed armies, like the description of the Landsknecht in AOE4, or for defense in early game. Then again, you rarely ever want to use one type of unit alone, in any AOE game, unless you’re training hussars against some sort of cav-skirm army.
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That is a example of the stats they can get in Imperial Age I would say they are fine as they are when carded. Some ranged armor and a strong charged ranged attack gives them some advantages over similar type of heavy melee infantry.
Edit: Note that is stats they had before when I was doing copy paste to compare units I don’t know if any stats of them changed since then.
Not every unit needs to be equivalent to all the others. Dopps, Hospitallers, and Samurai are all 2 pop heavy hand infantry and all do different things. Let Dopps be dopps; hospitallers have a niche with Malta and don’t need a buff.
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No, they are a beast if used correctly. Entire Italian civ army was nerfed because their deflection ability was too overpowered but Malta still has it working the same way as before.
That’s surprising. Maybe that nerf is why Italy has such a low winrate now.
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Nah, italy has structural issues.
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architectual issues you could say? 
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Probably a case of an architect designing the (civ-)building and the engineer repeatedly faceplanting his head on the table because the concept drawing doesn’t work.
slight rant.
The problem is it is supposed to be an economy first - military second civ. (as seen f.e. with their guard units beeing literally fringe fringe units even moreso than the yabasume rider f.e.)
Yet their economy without trade - routes sucks severly, especially for an european civ. Sure you can build free buildings which is overall a massive strength as it saves wood… which you immediatly will throw out because you will need pavisiers which cost too much to counter heavy infantry effectivly. Also it shares with the bersaglieri the unfortunate situation that their cost is not justifyable and requires a lot of card support. So the wood savings you had (realistically about 500-600 wood in age 3) is instantly thrown out again for an overpriced gimmick X-bow.
Supposedly italy is also a merc civ, but with the removal of the inf merc shipment in age 3 for pistoleers (which are also not fantastic and should’ve just not been a team shipment… but … anyways,) you got only mixed ressource shipments which are a boon and a pain since realistically the demand of an equal ammount of all ressources actually makes these shipments even more painfull to get than normal age 3 mercs.
and that just scratches the pinnacle realistically.
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