“can hold against paladins on equal resources” I assume u mean equal gold instead of equal resources? 50 Steppe Lancers definitely lose to 40 Paladin. Cumans SL can easily outnumber Palaldin tho, with the 9s training time
『Honestly the way i would fix the dang unit is just make it a pure raiding unit. make everything about it scream “Raid with me”, after all the extra range makes it superb for picking off villagers.
60 food, 20 gold.
600 food/500 gold upgrade.
+4/7 bonus vs villagers.
+1/2 base pierce armor (For a total of 0/2 and 0/3 baseline).
it would pretty much stink vs anything except siege, and villagers.』
I like your joke. I am sure u are a fan of SL. 60f 20G, that’s militia, but with speed 1.45, 80hp, 9 attack, +4 vs villager (castle age). Everyone’s go-to-unit again! Even the best ever in castle age!
If SL is so weak against archers, they wouldn’t have been so OP back in November. Mass archers will beat them at the very beginning. Gibing them +1 P armor is more than enough
Except it can run form almost anything, it has better pierce armor and health overall, and murders villagers. it performs better then militia against everything.
except they had a much higher rate of fire back then, moved faster, stacked (which allowed more of them to attack archers), and cost 50% less gold then they do now.
with the nerf to their stacking their effectiveness against almost everything was butchered. speed kills man.
proof that they stink vs archers? most people say the light cav and hussar aren’t that great against archers and they cost food only, the SL has even less pierce armor
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No, I meant that they loose horribly if sent via attack move, but can beat paladins in equal resources if patrolled properly next to a wall or woodline, at least that’s what I’ve got from tests against AI army for Cuman SL.
Ok, it’s been weeks (maybe more) that I read the topic, but I never said anything because I think that the argument is difficult and delicate, and I’m not sure myself on what would be the best course of action.
I’m still unsure, but I’ll trow here an idea just to encourage more conversation and try to see different angles.
What if the elite SL get +1 or +2 MA, that way the castle age SL would be the good raiding unit that it is, but then in imp after the elite upgrade they could become a good front line unit.
If the first line of SL survive more, than he can place more hits, and so can the SL in the second line. That way all usual cavalry counter would still work vs SL, but other units (like scout and knight line) would trade worse.
I think because Steppe Lancer is considered a “raiding unit” there could be some changes to be made, which improve their raiding potential without making them OP again.
Increasing their speed - making them the fast unit in the game
Increasing their range - so they can more easily used in hit + run tactics
increasing their ROF - so they can’t trade as benefitial as they used to when stacked together
Bonus DMG vs villagers
When having a decent amount of them they might be able to chew through walls quite fast, which would also increase their raiding potential.
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Whatever buff the steppe lancer gets, the HP bonus for mongols should be nerfed. I’d go for +20% HP and if we give them the last armor upgarde then maybe even +15% or +10% HP.
Then they should take away the HP bonus entirely, for hussars too
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To be honest, the only role I can think of for steppe lancers is as an anti-archer unit. I would just give them 0/2 armor and some bonus damage against archer units. Thanks to their range, they can pick good fights even when archers are stacked.
They have 40 less HP than knights, 1 more pierce is not going to be a miracle. I don’t think we need to give them a role necessarily, just make them okay in melee again
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The reason why we need a separate role for them is because at the moment they function largerly in the same way as knights. If devs buff SL, they become superior to knights, and everyone complains. If devs nerf SL, they become inferior knights, and no one uses them. Why do we need another knight from stables if we already have one?
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They need some kind of role. Right now there is no reason for using them over either knight or hussar (for raiding). Strictly speaking, they were an unnecessary unit, which added nothing to the game. But since they are there now, we should try to give them a purpose of some kind.
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I make steppe bois all the time I think they have a pretty clear role: massing fast in very early castle.
You can’t just look at paladin v steppe in isolation. Look at how it works with the Civ. For cumans if you go 2tc Feudal, you are often late to castle age, and when you get there you often need something fast that can handle mangonel and archers. This happens to me all the time and I’d be screwed trying to get enough knights out fast enough.
They’re also better than knights against palisade walls in general. Not just quick walls. I’m not kidding it’s a big deal if you’re trying to raid.
If you want to buff these things I’d say creation speed and movements speed are the distinguishing factors. Obviously Paladin are always going to be the late game strong guys and even in castle age I’d say knights should be better than Steppe lancers. But if Steppe lancers are better for just those first 5 minutes of castle age, that’s an identity. That’s how I use them.
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Imo that’s just bad unit design, like the condo was for italians before the buff. A unit useful maybe only for a few minutes in the game and then “useless”, meaning that your resources are better spent elsewhere.
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“meaning that your resources are better spent elsewhere.”
No, meaning that your resources are better spend on the steppe lancer for the first 5 minutes of castle age, then switch to knights.
I’ve noticed so many more players these days going walls + 3tc boom into their strongest unit than they did a year or 2 ago. It’s partly the map generation. But there is so much more to AOE than your lategame best unit.
This isn’t bad unit design it’s the best kind of unit design: the kind that isn’t obvious but has a clear advantage somewhere.
Blockquote
For cumans if you go 2tc Feudal, you are often late to castle age, and when you get there you often need something fast that can handle mangonel and archers. This happens to me all the time and I’d be screwed trying to get enough knights out fast enough.
just out of curiousity, how the 24 vs 30 seconds make such a big difference? what if u advance to castle age 25 seconds earlier? IMO steppe lancers are even worse in archer fights for small groups. Only raiding, sniping siege and monks for small groups.
i’ve got an experience, Tatars SL killed stand-ground plumed archers very easily. I think the current Tatars SL is very good vs low attack archers if having comparable (e.g. 30 vs 40) numbers. So if Tartars SL go 2+5 P armor, that’s pretty terrific. Probably better than Cavaliers vs archers IMO
Or it just means that the devs didn’t have any clear idea of what they were doing when they introduced the steppe lancer. Remember how completely broken it was at the start? Devs just wanted to add content to DE, even when there was no space for it.
Devs just wanted a Regional unit. But with Knights on all 3 civs that have SLs, there is no space for the SL at all.
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