Nearly all high level matches between pros feature Archer line, Skirmishers, Light Calvary, Knights, Monks and Mangonels. You can pretty much bet you are seeing these units every single game. Militia line is rarely used outside of drush or early fuedal aggression, or if a civ has huge weakness to infantry which only a few do. It’s rare to see them in large quantities.
So are you happy with the current meta which rarely features prominent militia line use? What are they missing that would allow them to be used more often in large quantities? You’d think they’d be the ideal pair for siege weapons but spearman line does a better job pairing with siege.
To give the line more use, they need a specific role than is not being overshadowed by other units. Like as power unit, they are inferior to knights (speed, strength vs archers, pop efficiency, transition cost) until late game (as very few civs have paladins), and to protect siege units, they are worse than halberdiers and less expandable due to the gold cost.
Imo there should be a tech that transforms militia line into trash units in late game, considering that foot soldiers with swords were probably (not sure though) the cheapest way to build an army by late mediaeval, compared to expensive gunpowder or horses or arbalests.
There’s a civ that has this as a unique tech (Malay) and I’ve watched several pro matches featuring them and they still don’t even use the militia line. Probably because just about everything counters or trades well with militia.
I think it is because it comes in way too late in 1v1s (games usually decided when there is still gold on the map) and it is pointless in team games (being a trash unit isnt an advantage, especially if the unit misses some upgrades and have no other bonus).
I’ll be honest, the only people who are happy with militia line are the people who don’t play infantry. So, I don’t even care about their opinion. Militia aren’t good at what they are supposed to be good at, even.
trashswords are really strong its just that it comes in way too late. when it does get to that stage they are super good, its just that it is not seen often.
No. Bonus damage against buildings is useless for a unit that very little pierce armour. Castles will absolutely destroy the militia line till you have a huge mass. But if you have a huge mass, elephants, or paladins will do an equal or better job anyway.
Look at every other anti-building unit. Rams, Eagles, Tarkans, Siege Elephants, Trebuchets, BBCs. All of them have high pierce armour, or huge range.
What I mean is their ability to counter trash units. I don’t want to go over this again, but they are not even close to being cost-effective against hussars and especially the winged hussar.
I still hope soon they will do something with militia line and melee infantry in general.
Except a small buff with Gambeson, nothing has changed but new civs appeared with range infantry and powder canon.
So automatically infantry got worst.
According to me, Two-handed swordmen should be available on castle age + a small reduction of cost. It would add some strats as THS can take a forum with reasonable loss.
I said it on different occasions. I think when we want Infantry to play a bigger role in the game, there need to be two changes to the current infantry concept:
A) Adding some kind of Micro potential
B) Adding a trash unit that pairs well with Infantry - and in Return also either increase the Gold ratio of the Militia line or add a new Infantry “Power” unit, that has a higher Gold ratio
We see it everywhere, all uinits that don’t have a good trash pairing need to be nerfed until it’s useless in most situations as it otherwise breaks the game in specific situations/matchups.
It’s just a so basic, but essential concept for allowing units to play a well stituated role in the meta.
So no, I’m not happy with the current Militia approaches, trying to press them into the meta a s a standalone “semi-trash” unit. It can’t work out as intended. Fortunately it hasn’t broken the game yet, but we are on the verge of breaking it with civs like Romans.
Longswordsman is too food-hefty in Castle age. You need better eco to play LS while LS is weaker than xbow and knight.
To encourage LS play, LS+ sth combo needs to force opponent double gold composition in castle age. Like LS reduce ‘faith’ of knight and monks can convert it easier + heal LS faster. When siege tower with garrisoned LS got shot by arrows, it can shoot back the archers and reduce cost of siege towers.
I think is better since recent patches (+1 MA for LS and gambesons), but not enough good. I see different paths to solve the milia “problem”, but i would prefer something like this:
What do you even mean? There are like a dozen things anyone can think of, and a lot of those would even be balanced. If you don’t want to see infantry, say that. Don’t skirt around the issue.
They already have that. LS will win against knights with micro, and lose without micro.
Not true. There are a lot of units which have no trash counter. Obvious ones are Searjants, Teutonic knights, and Cataphracts. Mamelukes and Ballista elephants also cannot be countered with trash if they are microed, and are en masse.
I’m not happy with them, but that largely has to do with intangibles like unit bumping.
A big part of why knights are acceptable is because A: They move faster so they can deal with bumping more efficiently, and B: they cost more so there are less of them so there is less bumping.
The way archers can just run away indefinitely because the chasing infantry line up to die one at a time is one of the most frustrating things in this game.
Or the way a small group of knights can beat a big group of infantry because the knights all start attacking in half the time.
Fix that alone and I think infantry would be in a MUCH better place.
I would elaborate, but pretty much all points have been touched by other comments here. I’m glad I’m not the only one. That being said, it is true I’ve had circumstantial success with the ML since the last gambesons patch instead of no success whatsoever.