Balance discussion on the steppe lancer

In line with this I came up with some new ideas.

So what I’ve heard people say so far is to give the SL a role either as:
Anti Archer
Full Raiding
Anti infantery, as i.e. Tartars don’t get good champions
Anti Camel, to get a Rock paper scissor cavalry triangle with Camel counter knights, knights counter SL, SL counters Camels.

I already made suggestions for the first 2 (+1 pierce armor on elite upgrade, and lower cost, bonus damage against palisades, houses).
So I try to integrate the latter two:
Let’s first see what stats the steppe lancer had before it got nerfed:
30g (45 now)
10(12) attack(9(11)
1.9 Attack speed (2.3)
1.5 movement speed (1.45)
So next to it’s stacking, which was the real problem, it’s DPS got nerfed by 25%.
One could try to revert some of these changes back, as I think the stacking was the real problem, but that still would not give it a role.
As it stands right now the Steppe lancer has one of the slowest attack speeds of cavalry units in the game. Together with the +1 range that would make for a nice micro intensive unit, that needs to hit and run to be effective, However it is not really rewarding if at the same time you have low Damage and do not stack.

So, what I would suggest is to simply increase their damage to make them microing more rewarding (11(14 with elite) Attack at 2.5 attack speed, that would just be an 11-14% DPS increase, so still lower than before the nerf)
And give it a slightly higher Cavalry armor, such as the cataphract.
Like 7 cavalry armor as standard, and 9 As elite. (Cataphract has 12 and 16, so the Steppe lancer won’t replace the role of the Cataphract)
That means it takes 8 instead of 5 hits for a spear man to kill a Steppe lancer,
5 instead of 4 for a Pikeman.
And for Elite Steppe Lance 6 Pikeman hits vs 4. and for Halb 4 instead of 3 hits.

A Camel Rider would need 10 instead of 6 hits to kill a Steppe lancer and a Heavy camel rider would need 7 instead of 4 hits to kill an Elite Steppe Lancer.
It would also perform much better against Eagle Warriors, taking 12, instead of 8 hits from Elite eagles, and could therefore become a real surrogate of the Champion.

So what this would do is to give the Steppe lancer something between 25-75% higher sustainability against anti Cavalry units, although statwise he would still get countered by them. However, with the higher micro potential, abusing its longer range it should be possible to cost effectively win fights, at least against Pikeman and Heavy camels. And completely counter slow infantery units.

Im still not too sure how much this will actually do, as the Elite Steppe Lancer will take the same amount of hits from a Halbardier as a Cavalier, but needs 3.5 seconds longer to kill it (same amount of hits as Cavalier, which has 1.8 attack speed).
Maybe it would be necessary to additionally give it a small anti Infantery bonus. (+2 for Elite Steppe Lancer, don’t think the non Elite version needs it, it already needs one less hit to kill pikes than knights do). That would be enough for it to take one less attack to kill a Halbardier, so it only needs 1 second longer to Kill than a Cavalier. It also won’t make a difference against Pikeman, not putting Civs that do not get Halbardier in too bad of a position. Also makes no difference against generic or even goth champions. It also won’t make a difference against Actec eagles, but Mayan and Inca eagles both will take one hit less than without the bonus damage (6 hits to take down Mayan, 4 hits for Aztec and Inca eagle)
In addition, one could increase the Speed of the Elite Steppe lancer back to 1.5, so they can outrun camels, making hit and run tactics against them more useful.
So in Summary I propose the following Steppe Lancer stats:

70 Food
45 Gold

60 HP (80 as Elite)
11 melee Attack (14 elite)
(only Elite +2 attack vs Infantry)
2.5 Attack speed
1 range
0 melee armor
1 pierce armor
Cavalry armor class +7 (+9 Elite)
1.45 speed for now, maybe increase to 1.5 speed for Elite in a future update.

Both in sustainability as well as in time to kill the Elite Steppe Lancer will perform against Halberdiers the same as a Cavalier. So the whole difference comes from the players micro ability. Both because of same (or higher) speed as camels and simply taking one hit more from heavy camels it also will be the better option against them. In addition the Elite upgrade will give much more value than before (1 more attack increase than before, +2 vs infantry, +2 Cavalry armor and potentially +0.05 movement speed) solving the problem of it feeling completely overpriced.

Just an idea, i’m not too sure if this will give it a proper role, as it will just be stronger against units that still counter it. However, it will perform similar to the Cavalier against those units, while being much cheaper on the gold costs. So it might be a decent unit, and especially useful against meso civs and goths. It might remain a niche unit, but at least will have a niche.

Disclaimer: During the calculations I forgot, that the FU Attack increases the stats by 1 more, than FU Armor, so some of the tiebreakers for hits received/needed might be wrong for fully upgraded units.

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