They could give them anti-halb armour to balance the weakness vs archers. And maybe give them trample damage too. Maybe the armour ignoring gimmick is too strong then, maybe make it bonus damage vs inf only then.
But we have way too main “go-to-Paladin” civs now, that it has become one of the worst offenders for bad or poor balance, in the History of the game.
I am begenning to become of the opinion that Paladin should have been unique to the Franks, because it is just an annoying crutch that the game has, and it completely overshadows ALL other Melee Cavalry UUs.
Huns, Franks, Teutons, Cumans, Persians, Byzantines, Lithuanians, Spanish… almost like they all have just this one unit, and make nothing else!
If Bulgarians still had Paladin, you would never see Konniks, and those are actually spammable.
Keshiks would never see the light of day if Tatars had Paladins either, just like Tarkas and Cataphracts do not.
It is the remaining bad design issue of the game, or at least the worst of them.
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You are suggesting a second cataphract. Why? Right now the Leitis is a cheap glass cannon. And it still performs exceptionally well against melee. Why should it also perform better than a knight against ranged units? 
Though I disagree with him, Leitis is not cheap, and it almost never sees the oppurtunity to deal any damage, so they are Glass, but not Cannon, in any way.
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I agree that the knight line is a bit over represented. I don’t know how to balance the game to not make it that way though. I think that with only eight out of ten paladin civs going for paladins it’s okay. I mean maybe I just don’t run into paladin that often because I don’t play team RM. Cavalry is just very strong in general (with hussars being the favourite unit of the devs haha)
The only Paladin civ that does not go for Paladin, is Celts, all the others do, even Magyars.
It is too strong, and needs to either be removed from most civs, or nerfed into a much lesser form (with a price reduction to justify it).
Well it is cheaper than knights. You could have two knights or three leitis if we look at the gold cost only. I’d prefer the three leitis in melee fights. But as I stated earlier, I see them like a camel now. You usually don’t go pure camels. With Lithuanians you would usually open with stables, add the castle later for map control and mix a few Leitis in, if its knights vs knights.
You also wouldn’t go teutonic knights against an archer civ right?
It is not “cheaper enough”, since I can easily have 4-6 Stables producing Knights, but will generally only get 2-3 Castles, and those are way harder to build and replace.
Bad analogy, they are Knights, not Camels, and with Speed Halbs and Super Skirms, you do not need a Camel replacement as Lithuanians.
Also, a Camel that can only be trained from Castles? Terrible design.
It would have to be WAY stronger than a Camel to be justifyable, and it is not.
Please elaborate on what you mean by “cheaper enough”. For what situations? Because I am getting the impression you want to exchange the knight line with the leitis, am I correct?
No, I want the change reverted, so there is an actual reason to get Leitis.
There used to be on, but now they are so easy to counter, you never build a Castle anyway as Liths, if you are going for Cavalry.
There is a reason to get leitis. It’s still a really effective unit for defending a castle in a pinch against siege, and it’s going to have it’s niche effectiveness against high-armored targets.
It won’t be useful or practical in team games, but not every unit has to be practical in team games. Honestly, I think the nerf was a bit much, but even as a bit much, it’s still got a purpose.
And yes, you still make Castles on Lith. Trebuchets have a place in nearly every game. They’re practically mandatory against many civ matchups with strong castle UU’s.
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Maybe i phrased it badly. I meant the Leitis is like a camel in the way that camels are fast and counter cavalry. Leitis are fast and counter melee units (but their "bonus damage as in ignoring armour applies to every unit, even archers). Both are not as costly as the knight line and struggle more against archers.
I was picturing it like having 10 kts and 4 leitis, just like having 10 kts and 4 camels against a pure kts civ. Does that make sense? 
BTW I’m not against your argument, I like more variety. From my standpoint this can be achieved my making units more specialized. So if the Leitis turns out to be a useless unit now (which I personally doubt) then I’d prefer it to be maybe even cheaper or something else, but not tankier.
Does the Leitis beat an arbalest 1v1? If it does, by a sheer population efficiency standpoint it should not matter if they have weak archer armour. Post IMP Elite Version has 150 hit points, while an Arbalest only has 40 hit points. So, even without good armour they should be able to tank quite a few arrows. Giving them more than enough time to get close and kill the arbalest.
So, the Leitis still weak somehow. Just make them even cheaper I guess. Or bring back their archer armor, but at the same time make them cost more. (some think they were OP before)
What even is that question? Ofc it does. A champion kills an arb 1v1, so does a hussar, so does nearly every unit in the game. But you never see 1 arb. You see 60 of them.
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I did a quick test in the editor.
Player 1: Japanese
Player 2: Lithuanians
Post-Imperial
Paladin and Leitis seem to perform very similarly in terms of damage output, needing three hits to beat one arbalest.
This changes however with two relics garrisoned. Now the leitis beats an arbalest in two hits, while the paladin still needs three.
Test 1: 25 Arbalest vs 10 Leitis (+2 relics) -> 5 Leitis remain
Test 2: 25 Arbalest vs 10 Paladins (+2 relics) -> 7 Paladins remain
Taking into consideration that the Elite upgrade is a lot cheaper and quicker than the Paladin upgrade, AND you get a third Leitis for free for every two units compared to Paladin (looking at gold here), this isn’t too bad. Getting two out of the standard five relics is very much possible.
… and with 3 relics both the Paladin and the Leitis need two hits to kill an Arb, right?
So if I understand that correctly it is only somewhat efficient to build Leitis against Archers if you have exactly two relics garrisoned? 
The real math will look worse in most cases just because your opponents are likely to throw something in front of the archers. When they do, whether you engage them or attempt to get around the units to hit the archers, the archers have an opportunity to get some free shots in.
Oftentimes in mixed fights the most important factor determining how the fight goes is how the backline of each composition matches up against the frontline of the opposing composition. A composition with the Leitis will take more damage, and therefore, die quicker to an opposing backline than a comparable frontline. This is the main drawback of the unit post-nerf. In reality, backlines do the majority of damage in fights because the backline doesn’t have to move into attack range or pathfind to a new target if their mark dies. Having a frontline unit that doesn’t soak arrows makes it a bad composite unit in most engagements.
That being said I still think the utility against high armored targets is what it’s meant to do and even though I think the nerf was excessive and probably unnecessary to begin with I don’t think it will sink the unit.
Rather, it is somewhat efficient if the arbs dont fire back.
Against archers, it is not primarily how many hits you need to kill them (altough 2 to 3 hits is a noticable difference). Rather, its about surviving long enough to surround the archers, making them unable to micro and kill them.
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No, the only case where paladins kill arbs in two hits is with persian ally and 3+ relics (obviously assuming flat ground).
Well…yes it is. It was built once in a high level tournament, to quickly deal with some rams when no stables were up. Thats it, as far as i am aware of.
If you want to nerf lith (which is justified, but not urgent; their pick rate is high, but their winrate is not trough to roof, so a small nerf will be enough) i think the problem are their +8 palas in teamgames and their +6 kts in late castle. You could nerf this by reducing the max bonus to +3; wont be impactfull, but you wont feel supersrewed if they ever get lucky with the relics. Or you could take away blast furnace (Probably overnerf and would need a compensatory buff, like giving them plate mail armor).
Or you make it harder for them to get to that FU composition, e.g. by weakening their feudal - make the trash speedbonus staggerd.
I am not saying those suggestions would be perfect and they might need some tweaking, but i guess its a step in the right direction - enabling lith to play a set of different strategies instead of just stomping with their kts.
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